Huguenot Church (Erlangen)

The Hugenottenkirche stands in Erlangen’s Neustadt, a planned baroque town built in the 17th century. Its plain rectangular walls rise beside the Hugenottenplatz, a small square laid out as part of the grid of streets. The church was designed by Johann Moritz Richter between 1686 and 1693 to serve the French-speaking Calvinists who had fled Louis XIV’s persecutions. A later tower, finished in 1736, gives the building its landmark silhouette. The Neustadt itself was renamed Christian-Erlang in honour of its founder, Margrave Christian Ernst, who welcomed the Huguenot refugees. The church is the oldest still-used Huguenot place of worship outside France and the oldest intact building in the Neustadt. Its simple wooden interior rests on twelve wooden columns while the outer walls and tower are of stone. An organ built between 1755 and 1764 still stands above the main entrance. Services were held in French until 1822, after which German became the only language used. The tower, completed with community funds, once served as the Neustadt’s only proper bell tower. Visitors enter through the west front on the Hugenottenplatz. The interior is a single rectangular room with an unusual north–south axis, lit by tall rectangular windows with moulded frames. The flat ceiling rises to a shallow dome supported by the twelve columns. Beyond the churchyard wall to the west lies a quiet courtyard planted with trees and enclosed by sandstone walls. The adjoining houses on the east side house parish offices and the former manse, now private flats.