Mariä Himmelfahrt, Gothic parish church in Kelheim, Germany

Mariä Himmelfahrt is a Gothic parish church in Kelheim with yellow walls and grey stone trim. Its four-storey west tower has a clock face and an eight-sided spire topped by a cross; the nave has a steep red-brown roof. Grey stone buttresses separate pointed windows with dark glass, and a crucifix hangs under a small canopy near the base.

A first parish church existed around 1000, when Kelheim gained market rights. The present church was begun around 1420 with the three-aisled nave; the choir was built around 1460, as an inscription of 1466 on the choir arch records, and the side aisles were finished by 1513. Lacking funds for a tower, the parish used a nearby city-wall defensive tower, linked to the choir by a flying arch; it was rebuilt in 1689 and demolished in 1846. The current neo-Gothic west tower was built in 1862 and joined to the nave during the 1877–1886 enlargement.

The church serves as the heart of Catholic worship in Kelheim and hosts regular religious services. It is also the venue for weddings, baptisms, and other important community celebrations throughout the year.

The church faces east, with the neo-Gothic tower at its west end; the two triangular-gabled porches open onto the middle bays of the nave's north and south sides. The stone figure of Mary above the south portal, carved around 1450, marks that entrance. A neo-Gothic lantern column on the church square recalls the cemetery dissolved in 1855.

The tower is not a purpose-built church tower: Kelheim had no money for one, so a defensive tower of the town wall was used, joined to the choir by a flying arch and given a spire. Floods near the Danube-Altmühl confluence damaged it; it was rebuilt in 1689 and replaced in 1862 by the present neo-Gothic west tower.