The St. Mary’s Church

Hof’s catholic main church St. Mary’s is built according to the ideals of the neo-Gothic style.

When the story of the great parish – which was mentioned in written form for the first time 1214 – was ended by the Reformation in 1529 and Hof and its surrounding areas became Protestant, the catholic life in the region ceased to exist for almost 250 years.

This only changed in 1810 when Hof and the margravate Bayreuth joined Bavaria and Catholics started to move back. Laborers from Bohemia and the Franconian Forest as well as Bavarian civil servants also came to Hof.

From that moment on the number of Catholic citizens increased steadily. For them the St. Mary’s Church was built in 1864 in the neo-Gothic style according to plans of the dome builder Denzinger from Regensburg. St. Mary’s Church has a special charm as it was allowed to keep its well-rounded artistic form. Only few churches were able to remain this complete regarding their outer appearance as well as their inner arrangement up to the organ.

In 1885 the then renowned organ builder Steinmeyer from Oettingen was ordered to build an organ which today belongs to the few unique historic organ instruments of the Romantic period.

On one column on the left side of the church is the bust of the Berlin dean Bernhard Lichtenberg, who was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1996. The parish of St. Mary’s feels a strong attachment to this brave contemporary witness who died in Hof en route to Dachau almost every bit as much as to the Father Rupert Mayer from Munich whose relics are held in the altar.

www.kirche-st-marien-hof.de