St.-Stephani-Kirche

St.-Stephani-Kirche stands at the western end of Bremen's old town, at the heart of the Stephaniviertel. Archbishop Adalbert I founded it here around 1050, and the centuries that followed kept reshaping it. The Second World War destroyed the quarter, and the church was one of the few structures to survive. When the neighbourhood rose again, it rose around the church.

A fire brought a thirteenth-century rebuild, and by the late fourteenth century the church had become a pseudo-basilica. Its walls mix sandstone and brick, and details shared with the Ansgarikirche point to a simultaneous early Gothic renovation. The south tower received its neo-Gothic upper storey in the nineteenth century, on top of an earlier seventeenth-century renovation. Severe wartime damage led to a reconstruction under architect Arthur Bothe between 1947 and 1959, which simplified the nave. The church has been a protected monument since 1973.

Since 2009 it has formed a single congregation with St. Michaelis. The Bremer Kantorei St. Stephani, a modern concert and church choir, makes its home here. Since 2007 the Kulturkirche project has brought regular concerts and cultural events into the building. Wheelchair access is provided for visitors as well. In the north aisle, set apart from the nave, you will find the separate worship space created during the postwar reconstruction.