ABSTRACT
In the wake of the Reformation, there was a serious reappraisal of what dened a place of worship and distinguished it from other buildings. e Reformers attacked and rejected the rites of consecration employed by the Catholic Church, and began to develop their own denition and conception of a place of worship. In Germany, a distinctive understanding as to what dened a Lutheran church emerged in the century and a half following the publication of Martin Luther’s 95 theses in 1517. is stance towards church buildings and the perception of them as sacred places was both a reaction against medieval religious practice but also a response to the confessional conicts of the period. In seeking to dene their places of worship, the Lutheran Church was also attempting to address the practical needs of their local congregations. During this period, the Church underwent a serious reappraisal of its traditional attitudes towards church buildings but it also attempted to express visibly and symbolically the parish’s own creed, and in doing so undertook a complex process of conguration and regulation of space.
