Schweriner Dom St. Maria und St. Johannes

The Schweriner Dom St. Maria und St. Johannes stands in Schwerin, Germany, a cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Saint John. It counts among the earliest large examples of Brick Gothic, in which cut stone gives way to brick. Above it all rises a tower of 117.5 metres, the tallest church spire in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

Henry the Lion moved the seat of the Abodrite bishopric here from the old city of Mecklenburg in the late twelfth century. A timber cathedral came first, and the stone foundation followed in 1172. In 1222 Count Henry of Schwerin returned from the Fifth Crusade with a reliquary of the Holy Blood. The relic, venerated as a drop of Christ's blood in a jewel, made the church a place of pilgrimage. Seventy-six years of building ended with the consecration in 1248. Builders completed both the nave and the transept in the fourteenth century. By the end of the fifteenth century the cloister on the north side stood complete.

In 1524 the Reformation took the building from the Catholic Church and handed it to the Lutherans. It now serves as the seat of the bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mecklenburg. The tower itself came later still, built between 1889 and 1893. Inside you find the tombs of the Mecklenburg nobility, among them Anna of Brandenburg and Anna Sophia of Prussia.