Luther House (007QR2)
Luther House
Luther House is the very place where Martin Luther lived and worked for more than 35 years. He moved into the building as an unknown monk in 1508, four years after it had been erected as an Augustinian monastery. Being a professor of theology at the university, it was here that he prepared his lectures. It was also here that the righteousness of God in the gospel revealed itself to him – and here that the ideas fermented in his mind which eventually led to the Reformation.
Even when the monastery was dissolved in the course of the Reformation, Martin Luther – now a well-known champion of the true faith, a widely-read author, and also a family man – remained in the building. In 1532, ownership of the house was transferred to him, and he inhabited it until his death in 1546 along with his wife Katharina von Bora, their six children, and also several students.
After Luther’s death, the building was acquired by the University of Wittenberg and turned into a hall of residence. Luther House has been open to visitors as a museum since 1883 – and nowadays, it’s the world’s biggest museum chronicling the Reformation. One particularly impressive attraction is Luther’s Parlour, the scene of Martin Luther’s legendary ‘table talks’.