Rostock - Petrikirche

With more than 200.000 inhabitants Rostock is the largest city in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

Small Slavic settlements existed already in the 8th century. A settlement named Roztok was founded in the 11th century by Polabian Slavs. This town was burnt down by troops of the Danish king Valdemar I in 1161. Afterwards the place was settled by German traders.

After 1226 Rostock became the seat of the Lordship of Rostock.

In the 1250s the city became a member of the Hanseatic League. In the 14th century it was a powerful seaport town with 12,000 inhabitants and the largest city in Mecklenburg. Ships for cruising the Baltic Sea were constructed in Rostock. Until the last Hansa Convention in 1669, Rostock took a leading role in the Baltic Sea behind Lübeck.

In 1419, the University of Rostock was founded, the oldest university in the Baltic Sea area.

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The Petrikirche is the oldest of the four former city churches in the Hanseatic city of Rostock.

A three-aisled church was already built on this site before 1300. In the middle of the 14th century, the church was built on the site of the previous building as a three-nave basilica in the brick Gothic style typical of the Baltic region.

Around 1500 it was given a tower about 127 m high, which was destroyed by lightning in 1543. In 1578 the tower was rebuilt as a polygonal spire after it had been, once again, damaged by storm. With its height of 117 m, it also served as an orientation marker from sea and land. In the following centuries the church decayed which led to a comprehensive renovation of the basilica in 1902.

In 1942, 40 years after the renovation, the Petrikirche was badly hit during an air raid. The tower spire and large parts of the interior burnt. While the vault of the central nave and the southern aisle collapsed, the vault of the northern aisle remained intact. In the course of reconstruction, the tower was secured with an emergency roof. The nave was closed with a flat wooden ceiling and the arcades between the central and side naves were walled and whitewashed.

The late Gothic baptismal font made of bronze was cast in 1512 by Andreas Riebe, as the inscription on the base tells. On the surface of its bell shape figures emerge in two rows. Quite a different design compared with the fonts in Lübeck, WIsmar and Schwerin.