Its official name is St. John's Church of the court and city in the New Town at Hanover (Neustädter Hof- und Stadtkirche St. Johannis zu Hannover).

Mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Field Marshal Carl August von Alten are buried here.

After the destruction of the castle during the Lüneburg War of Succession, a new chapel was built before 1388 by Cord van Alten on the Rosmarinhof within the Hanover town walls, close to the present location of the church.

In 1396, Bishop Otto of Minden made it the Kollegiat- und Pfarrkirche (collegiate and parish church) of the Calenberger Neustadt, the new part of the town south of the Leine.

The church was designed in Baroque style, probably by the Venetian architect Girolamo Sartorio, the duke's Bauverwalter, who didn't follow models but built a hall focused on the sermon.

[4] The building was financed by the duke and the representatives of the Principality of Calenberg, and to a large extent by the early capitalist merchant and banker John Duve.

[7] In World War II, air raids heavily damaged the church; only the exterior walls remained.

[3][6] The Baroque interior was not restored completely, but preserved parts of the original furnishings; statues and images of Christ, angels, and saints, as well as allegorical figures, portraits, and monuments, were combined and rearranged with modern elements.

The most important burial sites remained inside, including those of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz who was buried on 14 December 1716,[2] and general Carl August von Alten (1840).

[3] When the church was restored after World War II, a service was held on the first Sunday of Advent, performing Bach's cantata BWV 61, conducted by Kantor Werner Burckhardt.

All cantors concentrated on music in church services, but also conducted concerts, with a preference of works by Johann Sebastian Bach.