Alexanderkirche, Gothic church in Oerlinghausen, Germany.

The Alexanderkirche is a Gothic church building in Oerlinghausen with pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and buttresses that define its medieval structure. The building displays the typical features of religious architecture from this period with carefully crafted stonework throughout.

The oldest masonry in the foundations dates from a Romanesque basilica of around 1200, and its outline is still visible inside. After a fire in 1509, the present Gothic building rose between 1511 and 1514, reusing the side-aisle walls and the lower west tower of the 13th-century predecessor. In 1878 Ferdinand Ludwig August Merckel renewed the church and gave the formerly blunt tower its pointed spire.

The name comes from Saint Alexander: in 851 Emperor Lothar received the saint's relics from Pope Leo IV and had them carried from Rome to Wildeshausen, and Alexander churches were founded along the route. The 1547 Alexanderglocke, cast by Johan Ahues, bears a Low German inscription and rings for prayer mornings, midday and evening; the three steel bells of 1923 ring for services, baptisms and weddings.

The church stands in Oerlinghausen town centre, and the outline of the older Romanesque masonry is still visible inside. The tower with its pointed spire reaches 69 metres to the weathercock; the nave is about 31 metres long and 16 metres wide. The Alexanderglocke rings for prayer in the morning, at midday and in the evening.

The 1547 bronze Alexanderglocke survived both world wars: two bells were melted down in 1917, and in 1945 this one was found among 2,000 bells at a copper works in Lünen and rehung on 30 November 1945. Its Low German inscription reads "Sanderus hete ick, de levendige rope ick".