The Nikolaikirche is Leipzig's most important church, and not only for its architecture. For seven years before 1989, it hosted weekly Monday prayers for peace that grew from a handful of believers into a mass civic movement. On 9 October 1989, the congregation spilled onto Karl-Marx-Platz and the Monday demonstrations went city-wide, triggering the sequence of events that brought down the Berlin Wall within a month.
The interior confounds expectations. A Gothic hall church on the outside, the nave was remodelled in 1797 into a remarkable example of early Neoclassicism — soaring white columns tipped with palm-frond capitals, plasterwork in pale greens and pinks, box pews, and a general atmosphere of ordered grace. It seats 2,000 people and is still an active parish church. The contrast between the revolutionary significance and the calm interior is part of the point.