Sankt Petri and Its Crypts
The oldest working church in the centre
Sankt Petri goes back to the middle of the fifteenth century, which makes it older than every building around it that visitors photograph, and it is still in use. Frederik II handed it to Copenhagen's German-speaking congregation in 1585, and it has been theirs since. The city that burned in 1728, burned again in 1795 and was shelled in 1807 kept this one.
What is under it
The sepulchral chapels went up between 1648 and 1740, and the crypts beneath them hold coffins stacked three and four layers deep. The families are largely German merchant and professional households, which is the part that tells you most: for two centuries a German-speaking community sat close enough to the centre of Danish power to bury its dead under a church a few minutes' walk from the courthouse square.
Burial in a city that kept running out of room
Stacking is what happens when a walled city cannot expand its churchyards. The plague of 1711 killed about 20,000 people out of 66,000 and broke the burial system inside the walls, which is why Assistens Cemetery was opened outside them in 1760. Sankt Petri's crypts are the other half of that picture: the people who could afford to stay inside, stacked. See the plague of 1711 and Assistens Cemetery.
No walk on this site enters the crypts. The English guided ghost walk runs above ground from Nytorv to Kongens Nytorv — what it covers — and the other buildings people ask about are on the haunted places page.
Frequently asked questions
What is the oldest church in central Copenhagen?
Sankt Petri, built in the mid-fifteenth century and still in use. Frederik II gave it to the German-speaking congregation in 1585.
How many coffins are in the Sankt Petri crypts?
They are stacked three to four layers deep in the underground crypts, mostly the coffins of prominent German families.
When were the burial chapels built?
Between 1648 and 1740. For why Copenhagen ran out of burial space, see the plague of 1711.