Magdalenenkapelle

The Magdalenenkapelle stands in Magdeburg’s old town, close to the Elbe on the south side of Petersberg street. It occupies a corner position where Petersberg meets the riverside path called Knochenhauerufer. The chapel is built of rough stones with sandstone blocks at the corners. Inside, five tall traceried windows and a ribbed vault give the space a light, airy feel. The building began in 1315 as a chapel of the Blessed Sacrament after a host was found discarded nearby. In 1385 Pope Urban VI granted the chapel to the nearby convent of St Mary Magdalene, giving it the name it still carries. The Thirty Years War left the chapel in ruins, and it was rebuilt in the early 18th century with a mansard roof. Bombing in the Second World War destroyed the roof again, but the vault survived, allowing faithful reconstruction in the 1960s. Visitors step through a small west door past a stair turret that once linked to the convent garden. Inside, the ribbed vault rises above plain walls lit by the five lancets. A stone stair leads down to the lower church under a barrel vault. Outside, the rebuilt steep roof and slender spire echo the original Gothic form. To the south-west lies the old convent garden now planted as a rose garden, still part of the protected monument.