St. Maria Magdalena und Lazarus

By 1180 at the latest, the site held a leper hospital (campus leprosi) with several dwellings for those afflicted with leprosy. According to the records, the chapel's foundation stone was laid in 1243, and two years later the finished building was consecrated by Cologne's Archbishop Konrad von Hochstaden. This makes it a few years older than Cologne Cathedral, whose construction only began in 1248. The chapel was remodelled in the 15th century. After the leper hospital closed in 1767, it lost its purpose for a long time. Under Napoleonic legislation in the occupied Rhineland, Cologne was to gain a cemetery outside the city walls, and the Melaten site was chosen. The old hospital houses were demolished and the former leper chapel became the cemetery chapel. In 1919 it briefly served as the first parish church for new residents in Lindenthal and Braunsfeld, until Christi Auferstehung took over that role a few years later.

Damaged in the Second World War and later rebuilt, the chapel was handed over to the Catholic Church for use in 1952, though like the cemetery it remains the property of the City of Cologne. Founded in 2014, the St. Maria Magdalenen Verein Köln e. V. holds the right of use under a contract with the city and the Archdiocese of Cologne, supporting the building's restoration and its use for worship, funeral services and as a cultural exhibition space. In spring 2019 the association had the interior renovated: the soot-blackened walls were replastered and whitewashed.