After the demolition of the University Church on 30 May 1968 religious services continued in the on Sundays and feast days of the ecclesiastical year in the Nikolai Church, now referred to as 'Academic Services'. Since 1992, they are once again called 'University Services'. The university chaplaincy still exists and has tradition of worship within the university, which is unique in the whole of Germany. The demolition of the University Church was meant to destroy especially the university chaplaincy: the church building fell, but the parish is alive!
Professor Martin Petzoldt, who had been First University Preacher since the 1998/99, handed over his office Professor Dr Rüdiger Lux in early September 2009. At the same time Daniel Beilschmidt succeeded Professor Dr Christoph Krummacher as University Organist.
The Foundation expresses its special, deep bond with the tradition of University Services through the symbolic award of the restruck historical Paulus Medal to the First University Preacher. The aim is that, once the construction progress allows it, the bronze medal is incorporated in the altar stone of the church and that the University Church of St Paul once again becomes the home of the University Service.
The Foundation 'University Church of St Paul, Leipzig' will assist within its financial means in continuing the worship tradition to remain active. It also supports the concerns to restore the baroque pulpit by Valentin Schwarzenberger as soon as possible to its original location. The foundation considers the pulpit as a cultural heritage of national ranking and as a prominent symbol of the free and uncensored word. On this pulpit Nobel Peace laureate Nathan Söderblom and the first Bishop of Saxony, Ludwig Heinrich Ihmels, proclaimed God's Word. The Revd Dedo Müller, the Revd Ernst Sommerlath, Siegfried Schmutzler, the Revd Gordian Landwehr OP and many others preached against the zeitgeist of the GDR. Thus it is a memorial, which is both worthy and essential. The Foundation strongly supports the financial commitment of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saxony and the Paulinerverein to fund the cost of restoration and installation of this pulpit on this historic site. The historic altar had been salvaged and was placed in the church of St Thomas.