Augustinerkirche Zürich

Augustinerkirche was once one of the five main churches in the old town of Zürich, Switzerland, together with Fraumünster, Grossmünster, Predigern and St. Peter's. First built around 1270 as a Romanesque church belonging to the Augustinian abbey, on occasion of the Reformation in Zürich worship in the church was discontinued. The present Christian Catholic Church community of Zürich planned to rebuild the building to commemorate the old Augustinian church, and for the same reason, Augustinerkirche is still their Parish church, that was rebuilt in 1843/44 by Ferdinand Stadler. In the late 1950s, the church was rebuilt in accordance with the plans for the original structure. Today the building is one of the three medieval churches in the Lindenhof district of the city of Zürich.

Situated at the southwest of the Münzplatz square on Augustinergasse, west of St. Peterhofstatt square near the present Bahnhofstrasse, Augustinerkirche is named after the former Augustinian monastery, simply meaning "Augustinian Church". In the high European Middle Ages, the abbey was part of the fortifications of Zürich, situated on the lower slope the Lindenhof hill, near the small Kecinstürlin gate over the moat known as Fröschengraben or Augustinertor. The inner moat was protected by the 16th-century Schanzengraben. Of great archeological significance are the remains of the 1st-century BC La Tène culture. Archaeological excavations and aerial surveys revealed the Celtic-Helvetii oppidum of Lindenhof. The remains were discovered in archaeological digs in 1989, 1997, 2004 and 2007 on Lindenhof, Münsterhof and Rennweg, and close to the Celtic-Roman Turicum around the Lindenhof and Sihlbühl and the Münsterhof plaza.

Church data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).