The Law, the Gospel, and Remembrance of the St. Paul University Church in Leipzig

In 1545, Martin Luther consecrated the medieval St. Paul Church of Leipzig into a university church. By that time, this old Dominican church had already served the Leipzig University for more than hundred years. As an Evangelical church, it would continue to serve the university for more than four hundred years until 1968, when it was blown down by the socialist regime. Today it has been rebuilt. In December 2017 the “new St. Paul”  –  the Paulinum, Assembly Hall and University Church of St. Paul – was inaugurated. This article studies the memory of the St. Paul Church through the Paulinum. Particular attention will be given to the relation between the secular and the sacred in the old St. Paul and in the new Paulinum. Hosting religious and nonreligious services and functions alike was a natural part of the St. Paul Church for centuries. But this tradition has been challenged, and has been subject to debate in the planning and building of the Paulinum.