Marktkirche Unser Lieben Frauen

Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg, Archbishop of Magdeburg and Elector of Mainz, needed a prestigious church that met his expectations at a central location in his Residenz town.

Albrecht, who feared for his peace of mind in the heaven, had collected more than 8,100 relics and 42 holy skeletons which needed to be stored.

These precious treasures known as "Hallesches Heilthum" and indirectly related to the sale of indulgences had triggered the Reformation a few years before.

Notably on 31 October 1517 Martin Luther posted his famous 95 Theses, in which he condemned the trade with indulgences and sent a copy to his cardinal Albrecht, who in turn sent it to Pope Leo X.

Then the cardinal and the Roman Catholic members of the town council wanted to repress the growing influence of the Reformation by holding far grander masses and services in a new church dedicated solely to Saint Mary.

On Whit Monday, 17 May 1529, representatives of the clergy, the city council and church pastors gathered on the market square and decided, after extensive consultation, to demolish the existing parish churches, only keeping their towers, and connect the two (blue) western towers to those on the eastern side by means of a new nave.

Cardinal Albert left the town for good, after the estates (Stände) in the city had announced that they would take over his enormous debt mountain at the bank of Jacob Fugger.

[4] In 1713, Johann Sebastian Bach was offered a post when he advised the authorities during a renovation by Christoph Cuntzius of the main organ in the west gallery.

[7] Musicologists debate whether Bach's earliest extant Christmas cantata Christen, ätzet diesen Tag, BWV 63, with two choruses and two duets, but no arias or chorale, on text probably written by the Halle theologian J.M.

These two movements can not be seen separately and influenced each other, but it came to a debate on grace or virtue between theologians and philosophers of the Friedrich's Universität, which was located next to the Market Church in the former Weigh house.

[citation needed] On 12 July 1723, Christian Wolff, a professor in philosophy and mathematics, held a lecture for students and the magistrates at the end of his term as a rector.

[14] His subject was practical Chinese philosophy, and he compared, based on a book by the Belgian missionary François Noël (1651–1729), Moses, Christ and Mohammed with Confucius.

[15] According to Voltaire, professor August Hermann Francke had been teaching in an empty classroom but Wolff attracted with his lectures around 1,000 students from all over.

According to Jonathan I. Israel "the conflict became one of the most significant cultural confrontations of the eighteenth century and perhaps the most important of the Enlightenment in Central Europe and the Baltic countries before the French Revolution.

In 1726 Wolff published his Discours, in which he again mentioned the importance of listening to music put on pregnant Chinese women, and had reworded some on Moses.

It is possible the eminent professor, in between a member of the Royal Society and the Academy of Sciences in Berlin, introduced Wilhelm Friedemann Bach to the Prussian court.

[citation needed] In 1840 and 1841, the layout of the altar area was changed based on plans by Wilhelm August Stapel and Karl Friedrich Schinkel.

As a result of the artillery bombardment on 16 April 1945 the tracery window on the west front behind the organ was shattered, and the church roof and spires of the Watchmen's Towers damaged.

Until the establishment of the Friedrich's Universität in 1694, by August Hermann Francke with the aid of Christian Thomasius and Philipp Jakob Spener – the lectures were not held in Latin, but in German – it was the only public (or non-private) academic library in the city.