St. Matthaei, Church building in Schnellroda, Steigra, Germany

St. Matthaei in Schnellroda is a single-nave hall church with a polygonal east choir, located in the Steigra area of Saxony-Anhalt. A solid crossing tower with Romanesque sound arcades gives the building its distinctive exterior shape.

The church was built around 1250 as a Romanesque place of worship and was largely rebuilt around 1506. That reconstruction introduced the Gothic east choir that shapes the building as it stands today.

Inside the church, an octagonal sandstone baptismal font from 1609 is decorated with carefully carved reliefs. The altar combines a pulpit stage with ornamental carved panels that visitors tend to notice as they walk around the space.

The church was comprehensively restored in the 1990s, not in 2022. It stands in Schnellroda, part of Steigra in the Saalekreis, and belongs to the Mücheln-Langeneichstädt parish area; service times are the surest way to find it open. The tower's slate spire carries a small roof turret, and the bells were electrified around 2000.

A mechanical organ built in 1780 by Christian August Gerhard still stands inside and remains in working order. With eight stops across manual and pedal keyboards, it is one of the few surviving organs of its kind from that period still found in a small village church.