The first church of 1647 to 1669 was destroyed by lightning on March 10, 1750. Johann Leonhard Prey and Ernst Georg Sonnin designed the second, begun in 1751. It was consecrated in 1762 with the tower unfinished, and the tower was completed in 1786.
It is a Baroque Latin cross church 171 feet (52 m) long, 144 feet (44 m) wide and 89 feet (27 m) high, with 2,500 seats, the largest church in Hamburg. The copper-covered tower spire is 433 feet (132 m) tall, and an observation deck is about 272 feet (83 m) above ground.
A fire in the tower in 1906 during soldering work killed the tower keeper Carl Beurle, and the church was rebuilt in its previous form with steel and concrete, reopening in 1912. Incendiary bombs destroyed much of the interior in 1944 and 1945. The crypt holds more than 2,000 burials, including C. P. E. Bach.
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