Sankt Petri Kirke

Copenhagen


A handsome place of worship in the Latin Quarter is the German church of Sankt Petri Kirke. Dating from the 15th century, this is the oldest church building in the city. A child's coffin in the crypt is believed to hold the bones of Johan Friedrich Struensee, Christian VII's German physician. Struensee was beheaded, dismembered and buried on Gallows Hill in 1772 for bedding Queen Caroline Mathilde.

Axe marks on a number of human bones discovered on Gallows Hill in 1885 and examined in 1927 have led some historians to believe that they belonged to the ill-fated doctor. The bones were laid to rest in the church in the 1940s.


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