St Catherine's Dominican Monastery is a former friary in Tallinn's Old Town, hidden between Vene Street and Müürivahe Street. Dominican friars settled here in 1246, which makes it one of the oldest buildings in the city and the only partly preserved friary of a mendicant order in Estonia. Most visitors first meet it through St Catherine's Passage, a narrow lane where old tombstones are set into the wall of the ruined church.
St Catherine's Monastery at a glance
- Where: between Vene Street and Müürivahe Street in the Old Town. The monastery museum is entered from Vene Street, and St Catherine's Passage (Katariina käik) runs along the old church between the two streets.
- Founded: 1246, when Prior Daniel of Visby arrived with eleven friars; stone building began around the 1260s.
- What it is today: a partly ruined complex with a museum in the surviving cloister wings, while the former north wing is part of the Catholic church of St Peter and St Paul. The passage is lined with craft workshops.
- Time needed: 15–20 minutes for the passage, up to an hour if you also visit the monastery museum.
From friary to ruin
The Dominicans probably had a first house in Tallinn in 1229–1239 and returned to this site in 1246. It suited them well: they preached to large crowds and took part in the fish trade, and the friary became known for its learning. It also had its own brewery, producing four kinds of beer. Its church was one of the largest buildings in medieval Tallinn, about 68 metres long with three aisles, around fifteen altars and a vaulted crypt beneath the choir.
The Reformation ended all this. In 1524 a crowd forced its way into the church and drove the friars out of the city, and in 1531 a fire damaged the church and parts of the monastery. The ruins then housed the poor and homeless; later the city moved its arsenal into the courtyard and the council stored cannons in the crypt. In 1841 part of the north wing was demolished and the rest became the Catholic church of St Peter and St Paul; the west wing was pulled down in 1920. Archaeological research and conservation in the 1950s and 1960s saved what was left.
What to look for
- The tombstones in St Catherine's Passage: carved grave slabs set into the wall of the old church, with worn Latin inscriptions that you can still read in good light.
- The carved church portal visible from the passage, one of two surviving portals of the friary church.
- The craft workshops on the north side of the passage, where you can watch glass, textiles, ceramics and jewellery being made.
- Inside the museum: the small cloister courtyard, the east and west cloister wings with the chapter house, the dormitory and part of the refectory.
- The remains of the church itself: foundations, the partly vaulted crypt, lower walls, bases of pillars and fragments of window tracery and stained glass.
Friars, beer and cannons
The friary's history is full of contrasts that you can still feel on site. Within a few centuries the same buildings went from a learned community that brewed its own beer, to a ruin full of homeless people, to an arsenal with cannons in the crypt where the friars had once said Mass. The tombstones set into the passage wall are the most visible reminder of the first chapter, when this was a busy medieval friary.
Tips for your visit
- Walk St Catherine's Passage from end to end, from Vene Street to Müürivahe Street. It is short, so take your time over the tombstones.
- Come early for photos of an empty passage, or later in the day when the workshops are open and you can watch the craftspeople at work.
- Combine it with the Sweater Wall on Müürivahe Street, where stalls selling hand-knitted woollens line the old town wall.
Nearby
- Viru Gate: the two medieval towers at the end of Viru Street, the main entrance into the Old Town from the east, a few minutes' walk away.
- Town Hall Square: the centre of the Old Town, with the Gothic town hall completed in 1404, a short walk west.
- Masters' Courtyard (Meistrite hoov): a quiet courtyard off Vene Street with small craft shops and a café.
- Sweater Wall: the stretch of town wall along Müürivahe Street, at the far end of St Catherine's Passage, where knitwear is sold.
See Tallinn with World City Trail
Our Tallinn scavenger hunt turns the old town into a game you play on your phone. The route links 10 stops and takes around 2 hours, with about 38 minutes of walking. It includes Viru Gate, Alexander Nevsky Cathedral and Town Hall Square.
If you prefer a different format, there is also a self-guided walking tour and an outdoor escape game in Tallinn.
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Facts checked in October 2026.