Adaptation of Catholic ecclesiastical space and art was one of the challenges in the regions that underwent a transition from Catholic to Lutheran faith in the sixteenth century. The question of images and continued use of Catholic church furnishings were treated in the writings of Martin Luther and other Lutheran theologians. The attitudes expressed in the early sixteenth century were also reflected in local Church regulations and Church laws. The issue of the use of images was not just a theological problem, but intertwined with legal, economic, and political considerations.

In the regions that embraced the Evangelical faith, places were needed to conduct the Lutheran liturgy, and for that purpose the existing churches were used. The adaptation of Catholic churches was a complicated task in all Lutheran regions: no changes took place overnight. For the new confession, the sixteenth century was a time of self-assertion, and a Lutheran ‘image theology’ was not formulated until the early seventeenth century. Three major Livonian cities that adopted the Lutheran faith in the 1520s – Riga, Tallinn (Ger. Reval), and Tartu (Ger. Dorpat) – were facing the same changes. Adaptations were made to existing churches to meet the requirements of the new faith, and the question of the continued use of Catholic church furnishings arose.

This chapter seeks to shed light on changes in the use of ecclesiastical art in sixteenth-century Tallinn, as well as their implications. Above all, the chapter focuses on what became of the Catholic church furnishings and whether and how they were put to further use. On the other hand, it is relevant to observe when and why the first objects of Lutheran ecclesiastical art were commissioned. These issues are studied in parallel with the topic of the adaptation of the sacred space as such. The goal is to establish how issues related to the continued use of Catholic ecclesiastical art were solved in other Lutheran regions in the century of the Reformation, and whether those solutions were different from the ones applied in Tallinn. The second part of the study focuses on the changes in St. Nicholas's church in Tallinn. This house of worship has been selected for closer scrutiny because unlike other Tallinn churches, it figures in a number of written records; there are also several comprehensive studies and considerable information about the ecclesiastical art that was to be found in or was commissioned for this church.