Place of worship · Old Town
Saint Michael’s Church
The oldest place of worship in the city. A castle chapel stood here in 987; what you see is the 1688 rebuild, Romanesque below and Baroque above.
This is the oldest religious site in Luxembourg City, and it has been knocked down more times than any other building you will see today.
The first church went up in 987, twenty-four years after Count Siegfried bought the rock of the Bock. It was not a parish church for the town — there was barely a town. It was the private chapel of the counts of Luxembourg, built beside their castle for their household.
After that, the pattern repeats: destroyed, rebuilt, altered, destroyed again, through sieges and occupations and changes of ruler over seven centuries. What you are standing in front of dates from 1688, and you can read the joins. The lower stonework is Romanesque and much older than the rest; the doorway, with its swirling stone scrollwork and the coat of arms set into the pediment, is Baroque. It predates the Moselle Baroque style that later spread across the country, so it is an early example rather than a typical one.
Look above the entrance for the archangel himself — Michael in armour, standing on the dragon. He gives the church its name, and the Luxembourgers call it the Méchelskierch.
It has been restored three times in living memory: in the 1960s, in the 1980s, and again in 2003 and 2004. Each time the aim was to keep the 1688 shape rather than improve on it.
