Church

St. Johann (the "Wiehre Cathedral")

The mighty neo-Romanesque parish church of 1899 - affectionately nicknamed the "Wiehre Cathedral" by locals for its sheer size.

The Roman Catholic parish church of St. Johann stands in the Mittelwiehre and was built between 1894 and 1899 to plans by the Karlsruhe master builder Josef Durm. The occasion was the rapid growth of the district, incorporated into Freiburg in 1825, which the old parish church of St. Cyriak and Perpetua could no longer serve. For the eastern show front, with its two towers roughly 60 meters high above an apse, Durm cited Bamberg Cathedral in a letter to the finance directorate; the floor plan and interior, however, follow late-Romanesque churches along the Upper and Lower Rhine. The neo-Romanesque building is executed in red sandstone, with the slate roof appearing in its typical blue-gray. The church is about 74 meters long, the crossing 16.8 meters across; unusually, the altar sits in the west.

The figurative stained-glass windows were created by the Freiburg painter Fritz Geiges between 1898 and 1901. In the east choir stands an organ built in 1981 by the Swiss firm Metzler, with 50 stops and 3,536 pipes across three manuals and pedal. The peal consists of eight bronze bells cast in 1954 at the Schilling bell foundry in Heidelberg. The chancel was redesigned in 1975 as part of the liturgical reform. Today St. Johann belongs to the Freiburg Wiehre-Günterstal pastoral unit.

The address is Kirchstraße 6, 79100 Freiburg. The church is a few minutes' walk from Wiehre station; the nearest tram stops are at the Loretto lido and Holbeinplatz. Check service and opening times before visiting.

Address: Kirchstraße 6, 79100 Freiburg