Estonia

The oldest church on mainland Estonia, originating from a wooden church built around 1219 on Toompea Hill, rebuilt in stone by Dominican friars between 1229 and 1233, and consecrated to the Virgin Mary in 1240. After the great fire of 1684 the cathedral was restored by 1686, and its Baroque spire was added from 1778 to 1779. Inside hang around 110 carved wooden family coats of arms above 13th- to 18th-century floor tombstones, and today it serves as the seat of the Archbishop of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church.

UNESCO World Heritage Site (Historic Centre (Old Town) of Tallinn, 1997)Toom-Kooli 6, 10130 Tallinn (đồi Toompea, phố cổ)

Photo: Ren12, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

The grandest five-domed Orthodox cathedral in Tallinn crowning limestone Toompea Hill opposite Toompea Castle, designed in seventeenth-century Russian Revival style by academician Mikhail Preobrazhensky and consecrated in 1900 with Saint John of Kronstadt in attendance, celebrated for its Frolov exterior mosaics, three gilded iconostases, Tallinn's heaviest ensemble of eleven bronze bells anchored by a 15.7-ton bourdon, and its historic preservation in the 1960s by the future Patriarch Alexy II.

Cathedral of the Estonian Orthodox Church, National Cultural Monument of Estonia (ID 1102), and part of the Historic Centre (Old Town) of Tallinn (UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed in 1997, ID 822)Lossi plats 10, Toompea Hill, Old Town (Kesklinn), 10130 Tallinn, Harju County, Republic of Estonia

Photo: kallerna, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

The soaring Gothic landmark of northern Old Town Tallinn first recorded in 1267 and dedicated to King Olaf II of Norway, renowned as the tallest building in the world from 1549 until a lightning strike in 1625 (today standing 123.7 meters tall with the highest medieval stone vault in the Baltic states), cradle of the 1524 Protestant Reformation in Tallinn, and since 1950 the central sanctuary of Estonia's Evangelical and Baptist congregations.

National Architectural Monument of Estonia (ID 1097), part of the Historic Centre (Old Town) of Tallinn (UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed in 1997, ID 822), and World's Tallest Building from 1549 to 1625Lai 50, Old Town (Vanalinn, Kesklinn), 10133 Tallinn, Harju County, Republic of Estonia

Photo: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

Estonia's revered Stavropegial Orthodox Dormition Convent crowning sacred Kuremae Hill in Ida-Viru County, officially established in 1891 with the blessing of Saint John of Kronstadt on the sixteenth-century site of a miraculous Icon of the Dormition of the Mother of God found beneath an ancient oak tree beside a healing spring, celebrated for its 1910 five-domed cathedral and for operating without interruption throughout the twentieth century.

Sole Orthodox Convent in Estonia to Operate Continuously Without Interruption Throughout the Twentieth Century, Stavropegial Convent (since 1990), and National Historical and Architectural Monument Ensemble of Estonia (ID 13850)Kuremae Village, Alutaguse Parish, 41201 Ida-Viru County, Republic of Estonia

Photo: Ilme Parik, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

A thirteenth-century Hanseatic merchant basilica at the foot of Toompea Hill in Tallinn dedicated to Saint Nicholas of Myra, famed as the only church in Lower Tallinn to survive the 1524 Protestant iconoclasm intact after its locks were sealed with molten lead, restored after World War II as the Niguliste Museum of sacred art housing Bernt Notke's late-fifteenth-century Danse Macabre and Hermen Rode's 1481 High Altar.

National Architectural Monument of Estonia (ID 1215), National Museum of Ecclesiastical Art (Niguliste Museum), and part of the Historic Centre (Old Town) of Tallinn (UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed in 1997, ID 822)Niguliste 3, Old Town (Vanalinn, Kesklinn), 10130 Tallinn, Harju County, Republic of Estonia

Photo: Andrei Stroe, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons