The Cathedral of the Holy Cross plays an important role in the history of the town of Nordhausen: when Queen Mathilde founded a convent here in 961, she also spurred on the town's development. Nordhausen, which is almost 1100 years old, has the only other cathedral in Thuringia apart from Erfurt. Around the year 1000, the cathedral foundation received an important donation, making Nordhausen a place of pilgrimage. Mathilde's great-grandson, Emperor Otto III, presumably gave a rare relic of the cross: a splinter from the cross of Jesus. The title „Church of the Holy Cross“ has been documented since 1267. During the Thirty Years„ War, the cathedral was so badly plundered and damaged that the canons had to sell the precious cross reliquary. It was not until 1927, on the occasion of the city's 1000th anniversary, that the cathedral community once again received a valuable cross reliquary from the later Pope Pius XII, which is exhibited in a richly decorated golden cross reliquary in the cathedral that is a replica of the original. Thanks to extensive renovations, the cathedral with its extremely interesting architectural history shines in new splendor today. The crypt, built around 1130, is the only complete ensemble from the Romanesque period in Nordhausen. In the cathedral, elements from several eras can be seen in the early Gothic choir room with its delicately carved choir stalls, in the high Gothic nave with its imposing height of 18 meters, on the Baroque high altar from 1726 or in the panel painting “Madonna with Columbine", painted around 1420, the cathedral's most valuable image.