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Essen Cathedral was once the collegiate church of Essen Abbey, founded around 845 by St. Altfrid, Bishop of Hildesheim, around which the city of Essen developed. The present building, which was rebuilt after its destruction during the Second World War, is a Gothic church, built after 1275 from pale sandstone. The octagonal-shaped Western Massif and the crypt are survivors of the pre-Romanesque Ottonian building that stood here. To the north of the church is a cloister which was once used by the abbey. The cathedral is famous for housing the Golden Madonna of Essen. Dated around the year 980, it is both the oldest known sculpture of the Madonna and the oldest free-standing medieval sculpture north of the Alps.

It is a Benedictine monastery founded in the 14th century by Emperor Ludwig IV, the Bavarian. It is a well-known pilgrimage destination because of the white marble statue of the Virgin Mary, who allegedly led the emperor to fund the monastery.

The Evangelical City Church of Monschau (Evangelische Stadtkirche) is an 18th-century building standing in the centre of the village.

The Baroque castle chapel in the Schloss Weesenstein received its solemn consecration on June 23, 1741 as a private chapel of the king of Saxony. In 1870, King John of Saxony handed the chapel to the citizens: he had himself set up a small Catholic chapel in the former washhouse.

The town's Protestant church is a Gothic hall church built from 1300. The nave dates from the second half of the 14th century. The tower, typical of the region, was originally crowned with a pointed helmet above four stone gables. Its upper floors were completed in 1489. The present canopy was added by Theodor Escher between 1809 and 1811.

The Protestant town church was built in 1855-56 by the master-builder F. A. Ritter after a design by the Berlin master builder Karl Friedrich Schinkel for the Preußische Normalkirche. The building is a four-axis hall in ashlar construction with a recessed apse. On the west gallery, there is a late romantic organ with a neo-Renaissance prospectus. It was built in 1902 by Eduard Vogt from Korbach.

Medingen Abbey , situated in the Lüneburg Heath, is the only example of a late 18th century prototype-building for a female lutheran convent. Today there still lives a christian community with an abbess. The building itself and its special treasure of artefacts reflects the continuity of female christianity for centuries.

Fazle Omar Mosque is the second purpose-built mosque in Germany. It is run by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community (AMJ)

The former Dominican monastery of Prenzlau was founded in the 13th century and in 1308 it was already considered one of the richest Dominican monasteries in the Marche. In 1519, the monastery was damaged by fire, and a few decades later it was secularised. Since 1930, the monastery has been used as a museum.

The former Reformed Church, which dates from the end of the 17th century, is the fifth church on this site. The church was destroyed during the air raids on Wuppertal during the Second World War and rebuilt in the 1950s. In 1953, an upper floor was created for the YMCA by inserting a false ceiling. In 2002, the interior of the church was cut in half and a café was set up in the front part as a meeting place. Since then, the church has been called CityKirche Elberfeld.