Elisabethenkirche, Basel

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The Elisabethenkirche in Basel

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Stone pulpit with a 'camouflaged' wooden canopy

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Lock marked with the year 1863

The Elisabethenkirche is a church building in the centre of Basel, next to the Theater Basel. The best known neo Gothic building in Switzerland, its 72 metre high tower is taller than those of the city's Basel Minster and can be climbed.

It was built 1857–1864 by the wealthy Basel businessman Christoph Merian and his wife Margarethe Burckhardt-Merian. They were both laid to rest in black marble sarcophags below the church in the crypt. The Elisabethen-Kirche was the first church built in Basel after the Reformation. Merian also founded the Christoph-Merian-Stiftung. Today's congregation forms part of the Evangelical-Reformed Church of the Canton Basel-Stadt.

Today the church is home of the first Swiss "OpenChurch", die Offene Kirche Elisabethen. The Offene Kirche Elisabethen caters to the spiritual, cultural and social needs of urban people of all backgrounds: Businesspeople, shoppers, tourists, asylum seekers, working poor, minorities, homeless etc. The Offene Kirche Elisabethen is very well known throughout the city and the whole county for the Fasnachtsgottesdienst (service in honor of the Basel carnivall which is a serious event), Schöpfungsfeier (service with blessing of the human-animal relation), Heilungsfeiern (weekly and trimesterly healing-/blessing services for people in need and sorrow) and their gender aware spiritual practice ("Women at the altar", "Lesbian-Gay-Biseuexual-Transgender"-Community).

Nearly 50'000 people visit the church per year, for all the above reasons.