Construction of the original Collegiate Church of St. Mary (
den hellige Marias kirke) began no later than 1187 under archbishop
Absalon (c. 1128–1201). The church was located on the highest point near the new town of Havn, later
Copenhagen. Absalon was the bishop of
Roskilde (Zealand), Denmark's capital of that era, and spent most of his life securing Denmark from foreign attacks. He built many churches and monasteries, while also founding Copenhagen as Denmark's Baltic port city. Named archbishop of
Lund in 1178, Absalon accepted only under threat of excommunication. St. Mary's construction continued sporadically until 1209, when it was consecrated by Absalon's successor, bishop (c. 1161–1214) on Annunciation Sunday in March, which became the church's traditional feast day. The church was built in Romanesque style with its half-rounded arches inside and out. In 1314, a fire destroyed the limestone church so completely that it was rebuilt in the popular new building material of the day, oversized red brick. The style of building was Gothic, with its typical pointed arches. The rebuilding of the simple church with a long nave and choir continued until 1388. Due to a lack of money, the great tower was not built until the reign of king
Christian II. It was as high as the church was long, and from artwork of the day, out of proportion to the size of the church. A school was established early on. In 1479, parts of the church school received a charter and become the University of Copenhagen. Professors were brought from
Cologne, Germany. The international faculty widened Denmark's exposure to the great ideas and philosophies of the day. The university challenged the growth of the Protestant movement, but was eventually closed. By 1537 it reopened as a centre for Lutheran studies. The medieval proto-cathedral was completely destroyed by
a four-day-long conflagration in October 1728 which destroyed a third of the city. All the many chapels and eighty epitaphs commemorating some of Denmark's most prominent nobles and wealthy parishioners vanished. A decade later, the church was reconstructed, essentially on the same plan as the medieval church, in red brick with a simple long nave and rounded choir added at the end and ornate sandstone doorways beneath the spire. The interior combined Gothic and with the ornate
Baroque style of the time. Ranks of tall half-round windows let in natural light, and ribbed brick vaulting arched high overhead from two long rows of squared pillars supporting the roof. A row of side chapels ringed the nave and choir giving the appearance of a five-aisled church which impressed all who entered, including
King Christian VI who oversaw the building's progress with impatience.
Friederich Ehbisch (1672–1748) carved a magnificent new
altarpiece and pulpit in the finest Baroque tradition. The best-preserved ancient gravestones from the floor of the old church were replaced in the floor, although not in the same locations. After the 1728 fire, the new tower rose, higher than the previous one tapering to a tall spire modeled after the spire of
St. Martin in the Fields in London. The bells from the former
St. Nikolai Church (
Sankt Nikolaj Kirke) were moved to the new spire in 1743 and a set of four new bells were cast and added. The largest bell, "The King's Bell", weighed just over 6000 kg. Eventually, the tower held 42 bells. It was popular at the time to pay for extra ringing after weddings and funerals, which was a source of complaint by university students who were trying to study. A smaller tower in the same style was added to the roofline above the choir. During the bombardment, British gunners used the cathedral's tower for range practice, setting it ablaze, which in turn burned the cathedral to the ground, along with nearby sections of Copenhagen. '' in the Church of Our Lady, Copenhagen, by
Bertel Thorvaldsen Denmark's finest architect, Christian Frederik Hansen, and the city magistrate redesigned the cathedral in the
Neo-Classical style. Due to a lack of resources they incorporated elements of the surviving walls. The old surviving vaulting was blown up to make way for a church built in the new style. A pillared portico and a flat interior ceiling and simple classical lines are very different from the medieval church. The cornerstone was laid in 1817 and the work completed by Whitsun Day 1829.
Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844) was commissioned to decorate the interior with statues of
Jesus Christ and the apostles;
Judas Iscariot replaced by
St. Paul. Other artists also contributed sculptures and paintings. Thorvaldsen carved and donated the modern font as a personal gift. The tower, based on the older medieval tower, became a controversial afterthought. The Neo-Classical style did not include towers, but citizens demanded and got a tower modeled on the older medieval tower. The tower is 60 meters high and contains four bells. The oldest bell is cast in 1490 by Oluf Kegge. The next one was cast in 1699 by Friderich Holtzmann. The next one was cast in 1828 by Søren Hansen Hornhaver. The newest bell was cast in 1876 by Anker Heegaard. Our Lady Church was designated Denmark's National Cathedral in 1924. Its relatively recent cathedral status stems from the splitting of
Zealand (Sjælland) into two Lutheran dioceses in 1922. == Architecture ==