Station: [19] Bürgel Town Church

F: The church, the vicarage, the Old School, and now the museum –Kirchplatz, Church Square, is Bürgel's intellectual hub. And the town hall, just around the corner, is of course part of the whole.

M: The church tower, more than 45 metres or 148 feet tall, looms above them all, which gives it prominence among the otherwise tightly packed buildings. The church and its mellow-sounding organ tell of the faith and self-assurance of Bürgel's residents – but also of the support provided by the local rulers after the many town fires.

F: The history of this elongated, single-nave building in the Late Gothic style has been eventful. Two stone plaques embedded in the façade tell the tale – though only in German. You'll find them on the south side of the church, on both sides of an elaborately decorated portal.

M: The current nave was built in the late 16th century, after a previous building had burnt to the ground. From the plaque on the left, we learn that the topping-out ceremony took place on the 9th of September 1601. However, the wooden ceiling of the choir, the pulpit and the roof had yet to be built.

The church wasn't actually completed until 37 years later, in 1638, in the middle of the Thirty Years' War. Just three years later, it was again gutted by fire. Church and town were rebuilt yet again ... only to fall victim to the flames again forty years later...

F: ... the flames or "the Roman god Vulcanus", as the panel on the right claims somewhat euphemistically.

In the middle of the 18th century, Justus Ehrenfried Gerhard was commissioned to build an organ with an elaborately crafted façade. Gerhard became the ancestor of an entire Thuringian organ-building dynasty. The organ was remodelled several times over the centuries and comprehensively restored in the 1990s.

M: Take another look at the south portal and its carved and painted stone figures – a whole host of them in a naïve stylistic idiom. The tympanum features Christ with his right hand raised in a gesture of benediction, while his left hand holds a globe. He's surrounded by the heads of angels, and the group is completed by a crucifix at the level of the two inscriptions.

F: However, the central figure, dressed in a red and white tunic and holding the Saxon coat of arms in his left hand, is something of an enigma. We still don't know exactly who the subject is.