The Marktkirche is a late-Gothic hall church. It was built in the 16th century, replacing the Church of St. Gertrude and Church of St. Mary but keeping their paired towers. Justus Jonas introduced the Reformation here in 1541. Samuel Scheidt, Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow and Wilhelm Friedemann Bach worked as composers and organists at the church.

Martin Luther held sermons here on 5 August 1545 and on 6 and 26 January 1546. On display in a tower room are Luther's original death mask, a cast of his hands and also the pulpit dating from Luthers time.

The death mask was probably created using a plaster-cast of Luther taken by Halle painter Lukas Furtenagel in Eisleben on 19 February 1546 as Luther lay on his death bed. Because Luther's body had to be transported to his funeral in Wittenberg, his coffin was prepared in the vestry of the market church in Halle on the night of 20 February 1546. Thanks to Justus Jonas - Luther's friend and the first Protestant priest in the Market Church of Our Lady in Halle - Luther's death mask became the property of the Marktkirche church.

The pulpit dating from Luthers time is a notable work of Renaissance woodcarving from central Germany. The small pulpit box originates from the market church. Tradition has it that Martin Luther delivered his sermons from this pulpit; the market church's present-day equivalent arrived in around 1547.

St. Marys library, one of the oldest and largest Protestant church libraries in Germany, also belongs to the church. Dating from 1552, it holds 30,000 volumes including 600 incunabula as well as works covering every academic field of the 16th and 17th century.

Also worth a mention: Justus Jonas house, the Goldenes Schlössel, where Luther stayed in 1546, is located on Schmeerstrasse on the way to the Francke Foundations.