St. Clara

St. Clara is a Roman Catholic church in Dortmund’s Hörde district, with origins reaching back to 1339. Konrad von der Mark and Elisabeth von Kleve founded its earliest form.

That foundation belonged to a monastery in Hörde, later associated with Hörder Burg castle. The present building emerged in the nineteenth century, after church properties were secularised under Napoleon’s rule.

Bishop Conrad Martin laid its foundation stone in 1863, and diocesan architect Arnold Güldenpfennig completed the church in 1865. Its neo-Gothic basilica has a transept and cross vaults carried by twenty massive columns.

A seventy-metre tower rises where the nave and transept meet, with figures of church fathers. Inside, oak altars honour the Virgin Mary and St. Clara, while sandstone forms the main altar.

Modern stained-glass windows by Wilhelm Buschulte joined the restored interior after severe Second World War damage. A fourteenth-century crucifix and a 1736 baroque chalice add older details.

The organ, rebuilt in 1985, contains thirty-six voices and 2,700 pipes. St. Clara combines medieval origins, nineteenth-century architecture, and postwar restoration details.