In 1571, King John III authorized the German expatriates in the city to form a separate parish, including summoning priests from Germany, and it thus became the first German ecclesiastical parish outside Germany, It first held its sermons in the Greyfriars monastery on Riddarholmen (today Riddarholmskyrkan) but within five years relocated to the building of the German guild where the king earlier had a chapel built for the Finnish parish. The two parishes shared the space, with the Germans managing the maintenance of the chapel and also inaugurating a German school in 1580, soon relocated to Tyska Skolgränd and still in existence until 1888.