The choir was restored in the 1950s; beside the nave's ruin, it is situated west of the Schlösserbrücke bridge on the right bank of the Breitstrom, a branch of the Gera river.

Seven years after their arrival, in 1231, they moved into convent buildings on the Gera river on a plot of land given to them by the archbishop's vicedominus of Apolda, Gunther.

[1][2] In the course of the 13th century, the Erfurt convent became one of the central places of the order's province, where most of the provincial chapters of Saxonia were held in the Middle Ages.

The Franciscans probably soon founded a school and, from the beginning of the 1230s, a house of studies (studium custodiale, studium particulare) existed in Erfurt for the education first of the young friars in the Custody of Thuringia, a subdivision of the Saxon Franciscan Province (Saxonia) founded in 1230, but the studies soon developed both in terms of their level of content and their extent.

They opposed the Reformation; the Guardian of the convent, Conrad Clinge, had been a cathedral preacher in Erfurt since 1530 and vehemently defended the Catholic faith.

The eastern vaulted beam rests on a figural wall console showing a hand and above it a demon's head depicted upside down.

During the Second World War, the movable and transportable art objects of the church and the valuable stained glass from 1230 to 1240 were secured by relocation to storage facilities from 1943 onwards.

[10] On 27 November 1944, on the night of the Sunday before Advent on which the dead are commemorated by Protestants in Germany, the church, as well as the neighbouring residential area and the vicarage, were hit by an aerial mine during the attack on Erfurt by several British Mosquito bombers.

After 1990, a commemorative plaque on the street-facing outer wall in front of the ruin from the GDR era was removed, which had contained the following sentence in capital letters: "Destroyed by Anglo-American bombers on 26/11/1944."

Since about the year 2000, theatre performances have been held inside the war ruins, preferably comedy plays such as Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

In 2007, a "Barfüßerkirche" working group was formed with the aim of raising the awareness of the people of Erfurt for this monument of national importance and thus to ensure the preservation of the ruin in the long term, or to have the church rebuilt one day.

"[16] It is planned to intensify the use of the church as a museum, taking advantage of the Luther Year 2017, and to present the history of the mendicant orders in Erfurt.

[citation needed] The polygonal choir has thirteen high windows, some of which are fitted with stained-glass panes that date from 1230 to 1240 and were already present in the Franciscan monastery.

The central shrine of the Gothic carved altar shows in its second transformation (fully opened state) the Coronation of Mary by Christ in the centre, surrounded by scenes from the life of Jesus: Birth, Presentation at the Temple, Resurrection and Outpouring of the Holy Spirit.