Sankt Stephan, Würzburg

St. Stephen's, also called St. Stephen's Church, is the first longer existing Protestant church in Würzburg since 1803. It goes back to the monastery church of a Benedictine convent of St. Stephen, which was dissolved by secularization. A few years earlier, in 1788/89, the old building of the monastery church had been largely demolished and a new building erected according to plans by Johann Philipp Geigel. The old building with the associated monastery buildings dates back to 1014, namely to a former collegiate monastery of St. Peter and Paul, which was converted into a Benedictine monastery as early as 1057 by Bishop Adalbero. After the transfer of relics of St. Stephen, it was named only after him, while the name of St. Peter and Paul was transferred to the new parish church. The monastery buildings were used profanely after 1803, and were totally destroyed and demolished in 1945. New buildings took the government of Lower Franconia. The church was rebuilt in 1949-1955 as a flat-roofed hall building, consecrated in 1952 and is now the deanery church of Würzburg. Around the church, in addition to the already existing YMCA, institutions such as the Rudolf-Alexander-Schröder-Haus, a Protestant bookstore and a counseling center of the Diakonie were established from 1963, making the place the Protestant center of Würzburg.