In 1873 the cathedral celebrated its 700th anniversary, when an offshoot of the Lutheran Memorial Beech Tree, in Steinbach near Bad Liebenstein in Thuringia, was planted in the churchyard.

The then Romanesque cathedral was completed around 1230, but between 1266 and 1335 it was converted into a Gothic-style building with side-aisles raised to the same height as the main aisle (around 20m).

On the night of Palm Sunday (28–29 March) 1942 a Royal Air Force bombing raid destroyed a fifth of the town centre.

Several bombs fell in the area around the church, causing the eastern vault of the quire to collapse and destroying the altar which dated from 1696.

The discussion follows a research project at the university in Göteborg, Sweden, where a reconstruction of the Lübeck organ has been going on since the mid-1990s.

Since the war, the famous altar of Hans Memling has been in the medieval collection of the St. Annen Museum, but notable polyptychs remain in the cathedral.

Four hundred years later the Wends and Saxons had converted to Christianity, and the man now out hunting was Henry the Lion, the founder of Lübeck.

Thanks to the long-serving organist and cantor Uwe Röhl (1925–2005), the cathedral plays host to the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival.