Strasbourg
Church Saint-Nicolas
Description
On the quai St. Nicolas, you’ll see the church bearing the same name. This is where Calvin preached for the first time on the 8. September 1538.
Built in 1182, it lays for part of it on the walls of a later Roman Emire small fort. Rebuilt in 1381, it was enlarged in 1454. The triumphal arch bears the date of 1577. Its façade is modern (1905). Only a few decorative elements are left from the Romanesque church, used in the tower bell. Inside there are remains of frescos and gravestones.
At the end of his studies and almost during all the time he lived in Strasbourg, Schweitzer was a curate in this church’s parish. When he came back to Strasbourg in 1918, the preaches he gave there became famous.
During that period, from 1902 to 1913, Schweitzer was also a teacher at the Protestant theology faculty at the University of Strasbourg. In 1905, when he was 30 years old, he started to study medicine in order to serve as a missionary in Africa. He graduated as a medical doctor in 1913 and was later called “doctor of the virgin forest”.
