Tallinn churches

The guidebook to the medieval city shows 12 cathedrals and churches - Lutheran, Catholic, Russian Orthodox, and Ukrainian Greek-Catholic.

One of the oldest structures in Tallinn is the Dominican Monastery, dating from the 13th century. Most of it was destroyed during the Reformation in the 16th century, but some remains were uncovered in archeological digs after WWII.

These portals remain from the Church used by the Dominicans in the 14th century.

These tombstones were recovered by archeologists.

The Church of St. Peter and Paul, home of the only Roman Catholic congregation here, was built in the 19th century on the site of the monastery's dining room.

The most spectacular church in Tallinn is the Russian orthodox Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, built in 1900 when Estonia was part of the Russian empire. It sits high on a hill in the southwest part of the old walled city.

A few blocks to the west is the main Lutheran church of Estonia, the Cathedral of Saint Mary the Virgin, built by Danes in the 13th century.

This famous clock, the oldest public timepiece in Tallinn, is on the side of the Holy Spirit Church, built in the 14th century, just to the side of Town Hall Square.

St. Nicholas' Orthodox Church, built in the early 19th century, is on a site tracing to Russian merchants and an earlier church in the 15th century. The medieval walls of the city are visible here on the left.

St. Olav's Church in the northern end of the medieval city dates to the 13th century and once had the highest tower in the city at 159 meters. White speakers and television screens are now installed in this huge church founded by Scandinavian merchants.

The city's only synagogue was destroyed in Allied bombing in 1944. A new one outside the city walls was built in just 2007, but I didn't get over to see it. The 1000 Jews in Tallinn in 1941, when the Nazis invaded, were murdered. When Estonia was forced into the Soviet Union, Jewish organizations were prohibited, so the return of a small Jewish population has been very recent. Apparently there is a small memorial to the Holocaust at the site of the Klooga concentration camp in Estonia, but nothing in Tallinn.

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