Monastery Church, Sighișoara

The Monastery Church (Biserica Mănăstirii) stands on Museum Square in Sighișoara's citadel, right next to the Clock Tower. It is a Gothic hall church whose nave vault collapsed in the great fire of 1676; since its rebuilding it has combined Gothic and Baroque elements. It was the church of the Dominican friary, whose buildings have not survived. The Dominican friary is first recorded in 1298, when a bull of Pope Boniface VIII granted indulgences to those who made donations to the convent. The church was built on the site of a Romanesque basilica and rebuilt as a Gothic hall church in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. After the Reformation, in the mid-sixteenth century, the friary was dissolved and the church became the parish church of the Saxon community. The friary buildings long housed schools and for a time the town council; they were demolished in 1886. The oldest object inside is the fifteenth-century bronze baptismal font. The Baroque altar dates from the late seventeenth century, and the Baroque furnishings include the painted organ and the painted gallery parapets. About 35 old oriental carpets from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries hang on the walls and galleries. The church holds the services of the Lutheran parish. The church of the former Dominican friary is a historic monument with LMI code MS-II-m-A-15936 and is part of the Historic Centre of Sighișoara, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1999. It is the parish church of the Lutheran Parish of Sighișoara.