Church of St. Andrew

St Andrew’s stands in Düsseldorf’s centre as a South German baroque church built between 1622 and 1629 for the Jesuits. After the order’s suppression in 1773 it became a parish church, then in 2005 it passed to the Dominicans as their priory church. The building belongs to North Rhine-Westphalia, while the friars administer the older collegiate church of St Lambertus nearby.

The church holds life-size statues of apostles and Jesuit saints carved by local hands. Its interior stucco is the work of Johannes Kuhn from Strassburg. A Venetian architect, Simone del Sarto, designed the Electors’ mausoleum which holds several Palatine rulers. The high altar was lost in the Second World War and replaced in 1960 by Ewald Mataré. Side altars carry paintings by Ernst Deger, and the organ, rebuilt after war damage, was enlarged by Fabritius in 1953.

Visitors enter a single nave framed by tall pilasters and lit by tall windows. The restored organ stands on a west gallery above the main door. The mausoleum chapel lies to the north, its marble tombs arranged beneath a dome. The Dominicans maintain quiet spaces for prayer beside the sanctuary, while outside the façade shows the original Jesuit plan.