St. Sebastian (Mannheim)
St. Sebastian is the oldest Catholic parish church in the city of Mannheim and one of the three churches of the Mannheim city pastoral unit in the city center. In Electoral Palatine times it was used by the Elector as a court church and received a magnificent interior by artists such as Bibiena, Verschaffelt and Egell. The furnishings were impaired by remodeling in the 19th century and damaged during World War II. Together with the Old Town Hall, St. Sebastian's Church forms a Baroque double building erected at the beginning of the 18th century, which is the oldest preserved structure in the city. History First church in Mannheim Mannheim was first mentioned in the Lorsch Codex in 766. Since when there was a church in Mannheim is not known, a parish priest was first attested in 1309. In the Worms synodale of 1496, a visitation protocol of the parishes of the Worms diocese, the Mannheim parish church was described and it was recorded for the first time that St. Sebastian was the patron of the church and village. In 1556, Elector Ottheinrich introduced the Reformation in the Electoral Palatinate. Nothing is known about the further fate of the old St.