The Marienkirche is one of the oldest churches in Berlin whose oldest sections are constructed from granite. The majority of the church was built from brick, giving it its characteristic bright red colour. This colour was intentional to match the one of the nearby Berlin City Hall, known as the Rotes Rathaus or the Red City Hall. In 1340, the church increased in size and was turned into a triple-aisled Gothic hall church with a large five-sided east choir, but sadly, in 1380, it was devastated by fire and had to be rebuilt. The steeple, added by the architect Karl Gotthard Langhans between 1790 and 1792, is covered with a mixture of Neo-Gothic and Classical designs. The Marienkirche was heavily damaged again in a bombing of the Allied forces during World War II. The church became part of East Berlin after the war and was restored to its former glory in the 1950s.

Prior to World War II, the Marienkirche lay in the middle of a tightly populated part of the district known as Mitte, where it was used regularly as a parish church. Following the war and the removal of debris from bombings, the church remained in the open area around the Alexanderplatz with the East Berlin television tower or the Fernsehturm as its backdrop. Today, the church is the seat of the Lutheran Church’s Bishop of Berlin and hosts ecumenical services and church music meetings.

August Stühler in 1860. Regrettably, the quality of the painting deteriorated significantly because of adverse environmental conditions. Other remarkable highlights inside the church include the outstanding pulpit by Andreas Schlüter designed and built around 1702. Outside of the church, there is an imposing statue of Martin Luther, a tribute to the Reformation. The statue was erected on the Neuer Markt in 1895, but was damaged in World War II. In addition to the statue of Martin Luther, there are other statues of great Reformers such as Reuchlin, Melanchton and Ulrich von Hutten, but they too were badly damaged by the bombings. The Marienkirche is also home to the tombs of field marshals like Otto Christoph von Sparr, an Imperial Field Officer in the Thirty Years War.

In recent years, the church has become a large tourist attraction of the capital. Guided tours and regular recitals in the church take place from Monday to Thursday at 1pm and on Sunday at a quarter to noon. On Saturday afternoons, there are organ recitals, which are extremely popular with the locals. Everyone is welcome to come and join in on the singing; however, taking pictures is prohibited during this time.