Stadtkirche Unser lieben Frauen, Gothic church in Mittweida, Germany.
Stadtkirche Unser lieben Frauen is a late-Gothic hall church of rendered rubble masonry, three aisles and four bays, with varied net-vault forms. Its two-aisled choir closes with seven sides of a dodecagon; the lower north choir aisle, kept from the earlier building, has stone galleries. The west tower with its tower-keeper's room was rebuilt 1516–1522.
The church was first documented in 1303 and experienced a turning point after a fire in 1450, with only the sacristy surviving the disaster unchanged. The subsequent reconstruction shaped the building for centuries to come.
The church is also known as St. Marien Mittweida and belongs to the Mittweidaer Land parish of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saxony. Its 1661 three-part altar by Valentin Otte and Johann Richter of Meissen shows an Last Supper relief in the predella and an Ecce homo figure in a central niche, flanked by evangelist figures before painted illusionistic architecture.
The church stands on a fortified churchyard above the town, reached from the north and west sides. From the outside of the churchyard wall, several vaulted underground grain cellars and rock-cut passages open into the slope; they were used to store grain and equipment or as refuges. The west tower, rebuilt 1516–1522, holds a tower keeper's room.
Underground vaults and caves surround the grounds beneath and around the building, which were once used to store grain. These hidden spaces reveal how the church played a central role in the community's food security and safety for centuries.
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