St. Nicholas' Church

St Nicholas Church stands in Tallinn’s old town, a medieval brick building begun in the 13th century by merchants from Gotland. Built as a Catholic church, it became Lutheran after the 1520s Reformation and served as a parish church until wartime damage ended regular services. Today the building houses the Niguliste Museum, a branch of the Art Museum of Estonia, and also functions as a concert hall. The church is worth visiting for its collection of medieval ecclesiastical art and its dramatic history. The tower reaches 105 metres and carries a Baroque spire added in the 17th century. In 1944 Soviet bombing gutted the interior, yet many treasures had been evacuated and later returned. After careful restoration the church reopened in 1984 as both museum and concert venue. Inside, visitors find Bernt Notke’s fragment of the Dance of Death, a 30-metre painting begun in the late 15th century. The former high altar by Hermen Rode shows over thirty wooden saints and panels of Saint Nicholas’s life. A seven-branched brass candelabrum from 1519 towers four metres high, and the silver chamber displays guild treasures. The side chapel once held the mummified body of Duke Charles Eugène de Croÿ, a Russian commander who died in 1702 and remained on display until 1897.