St. Stephen’s Cathedral: Vienna’s Cathedral and Metropolitan Church
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Very High
- Country
- Austria
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Duchy of Austria, Habsburg, Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page25 sections
History
St. Stephen’s Cathedral is a cathedral in Vienna, Austria, built by the medieval church of Passau and later developed as the cathedral and metropolitan church of Vienna. Its history begins with a Romanesque church completed in the twelfth century and continues through Gothic enlargement, Baroque refitting, wartime destruction, and postwar reconstruction. Dedicated to St. Stephen, traditionally regarded in Christianity as the first Christian martyr, it received All Saints as a second dedication and remains the parish church of St. Stephen’s Cathedral Parish.
Roman foundations and the first church
The cathedral stands east of the Roman legionary camp of Vindobona. Buildings and roads occupied the area from the first to the third century, while graves and funerary structures took their place during the third and fourth centuries. Repeated discoveries of graves near Stock-im-Eisen-Platz have continued since 1690, and archaeological evidence indicates that the first church may have been built over an earlier Roman cemetery.
The site’s medieval history begins with the Treaty of Mautern in 1137. Margrave Leopold IV of Austria and Reginmar, Bishop of Passau, exchanged land and parish rights so that Passau could establish a church outside the contemporary city. The new church was dedicated to St. Stephen, the patron of Passau Cathedral, while the parish rights of the existing Church of St. Peter were transferred to the new Viennese parish. The dedication also carried a political meaning, since other early Viennese churches were associated with saints of Salzburg. It emphasized Vienna’s connection with Passau.
The first Romanesque church was completed in 1147 and consecrated on 8 June of that year by Reginbert of Hagenau, Bishop of Passau. Eberger, a cleric from Passau who accompanied the bishop, became its first recorded parish priest. The unusually large building may reflect an early intention to create a bishop’s church. It was approximately 83 metres long, with a central nave about 12 metres wide and a total width of about 26 metres across its three naves. Its axis was aligned with the sunrise of 26 December, the feast of St. Stephen. The church was completed or substantially developed by about 1160.
The Late Romanesque rebuilding
Between 1230 and 1245, Duke Frederick II of Austria sponsored a second, Late Romanesque church. Parts of its western structure survive in the Giant’s Gate, the two Heathen Towers, and the western gallery. A fire damaged the building in 1258. It was completed under Ottokar II and reconsecrated by Otto of Passau in 1263. The upper portions of the Heathen Towers were probably built after this rebuilding, and a later flying arch, an exterior brace that transfers structural forces between parts of a building, was added between them to counter movement and settlement in the western structure.
Another fire in 1276 damaged the choir but spared the western facade, gallery, and rooms beside the towers. The cathedral then became a setting for wider ecclesiastical affairs. From 10 to 12 May 1267 it hosted the Provincial Council of Vienna, a meeting of the church province governed from Salzburg. The council addressed church organization and the already strained relationship between Christians and Jews.
The Gothic cathedral and the Habsburgs
The Gothic transformation began under Duke Albert I and Duke Albert II, who replaced the earlier choir with the enlarged Albertinian Choir between 1304 and 1340. The new choir, influenced by the Cistercian church at Heiligenkreuz, was consecrated on 23 April 1340 and was already being used for worship.
Duke Rudolf IV, known as the Founder, laid the foundation stone for the south tower and the Gothic enlargement on 7 April 1359. The choir was reconsecrated in 1365, the same year in which St. Stephen’s became a cathedral church and the seat of a priestly community. Rudolf transferred to it the collegiate community he had founded in 1358 in the All Saints Chapel of the Hofburg. Its provost received the title Archchancellor of Austria and became rector of the new University of Vienna.
Rudolf’s All Saints Chapter was placed directly under Rome and exempted from the authority of Salzburg and Passau, although the cathedral itself did not yet have that exemption. Rudolf also began the important relic collection, founded the ducal crypt around 1363, and was buried in the choir after his unexpected death in 1365. The western nave chapels and the two princely portals belong to the building program associated with his rule.
The south tower took about seventy-five years to complete. Its first recorded master of works was Seyfried in 1368. Wenzel Parler, formerly master builder of Prague Cathedral, served as Viennese master builder in 1403 and 1404. After major corrections, Peter and Hans of Prachatitz completed the tower in modified form, placing its final finial in 1433.
The Gothic nave developed alongside the tower. By 1430 its south side had advanced far enough for the remaining early Gothic nave to be demolished. Mathes Helbling completed the western part of the north wall by 1440, after which Hans Puchsbaum developed the nave as a pseudo-basilica, a church with a raised central nave but no continuous upper window level. Laurenz Spenning completed the elaborate rib vaulting. The Friedrich Gable, named for Emperor Frederick III, was the only external tracery gable completed during the Middle Ages.
Vienna became a diocese in 1469, and Rudolf IV’s collegiate foundation became the cathedral chapter. In 1479 the cathedral became the seat of the bishop and chapter. It also served as a place for public addresses to the Viennese community, including speeches by Archduke Albert VI.
The unfinished north tower
Emperor Frederick III laid the foundation stone of the north tower in 1450. Construction resumed under Laurenz Spenning in 1467 after a long interruption linked partly to political tensions between the city and the emperor. The portal level was completed by 1477, and further work followed under Simon Achleitner, Jorg Kling, and Jorg Oechsl. Building stopped in 1511.
Economic difficulties, religious conflicts, the First Ottoman Siege of Vienna in 1529, and the need to strengthen the city’s fortifications prevented the planned tower from matching the south tower. In 1578 Hans and Caspar Saphoy capped it with a Renaissance bell storey and hood. A double eagle formerly stood on its summit, giving the unfinished structure the alternative name Eagle Tower.
Anton Pilgram directed the building works from 1511 to 1515. He completed the organ support and contributed to the pulpit. A figure beneath the pulpit is traditionally identified as Pilgram’s self-portrait and called the Fenstergucker, but the sculptor’s identity remains uncertain.
Cathedral, diocese, and metropolitan church
The cathedral became the metropolitan church of the archbishop of Vienna in 1723. A cathedral is the principal church of a diocese and contains the bishop’s seat, while a metropolitan church is the principal church of an archdiocese. The cathedral chapter is the body of clergy responsible for much of a cathedral’s administration and liturgical life. Today the cathedral’s continuing institutional structure includes the cathedral church, the cathedral and metropolitan chapter, and the archiepiscopal curia, whose members are appointed by the archbishop and organize pastoral care and worship.
The interior was substantially refitted in the Baroque style in 1647 under master builder Hans Herstorffer. Johann Jacob Pock made the early Baroque high altar, and his brother Tobias Pock painted its altarpiece. Additional Baroque altars, furnishings, imperial oratories, and organs were added during the seventeenth century.
During the Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683, cannon fire struck the cathedral. The large Pummerin bell was later cast from metal taken from the besiegers’ cannon. After Emperor Charles VI vowed in 1713 to found a church if the plague ended, construction of the Church of St. Charles began about three years later.
Fighting in the cathedral during the Napoleonic wars caused further damage. Major repairs followed between 1810 and 1815 under the court architect Johann Nepomuk Amann. Nineteenth-century restoration rebuilt the upper part of the south tower, reconstructed the nave gables, and installed Neo-Gothic stained glass. The uppermost 17 metres of the south tower were removed and rebuilt between 1839 and 1842. Because iron reinforcement and cement caused further damage, the upper 40 metres were dismantled in 1861 and rebuilt between 1862 and 1864 by Friedrich von Schmidt using medieval stone techniques.
Fire, reconstruction, and conservation
During the final fighting of the Second World War, a bomb pierced the vault of the south aisle on 6 April 1945. Four days later, Wehrmacht captain Gerhard Klinkicht refused an order from city commander Sepp Dietrich to destroy the cathedral with artillery. A memorial plaque commemorates his refusal.
On the night of 12 April, the roof and substantial parts of the interior burned. Eyewitness evidence attributes the fire to flames spreading from nearby buildings set alight by looters. Earlier combat had opened holes in the roof, allowing sparks to reach the wooden roof structure, while firefighting was hindered after an American air raid destroyed the cathedral’s two large water pipes.
The fire destroyed or severely damaged the Pummerin and other bells, the Wimpassing Cross, the 1886 Walcker organ, the choir organ, the imperial gallery, the imperial oratories, the Gothic choir stalls, and several vaults. Protective masonry saved the tomb of Frederick III almost entirely. The remaining vaults of the south choir collapsed in November 1947.
Reconstruction began immediately and was financed partly by donations from the Austrian population. A steel roof structure was completed in 1950, and the cathedral reopened ceremonially in 1952 with a newly cast Pummerin. The rebuilding was associated with Cardinal Theodor Innitzer and master builder Karl Holey. Later conservation has restored sculpture and masonry, replaced damaging systems, renewed historic glazing, and repaired organs and bells. The cathedral workshop works in cycles of about 35 to 40 years and uses laser cleaning, digital measurement, three-dimensional modeling, and full-scale computer-produced sculptural guides.
Restoration of the south tower began in 1997 after a finial weighing about 14 tonnes threatened to fall. Work extended to the south facade, the west side of the tower, and its eastern side from 2021, together with structural reinforcement and renewal of the concealed wooden roof and metal covering. The tower’s historical settlement of about 30 centimetres has stopped, with no new structural tension or cracking recorded. The south facade and tower were completed by 2020 and 2021, while the Primtorhalle and endangered finials were renewed through 2025.
The Giant’s Gate was restored and excavated in 1996 and 1997. The work included large-scale laser cleaning and identified seven historic paint layers as well as a previously unknown cemetery. A conservation program begun in 2025 addressed salt contamination, ground moisture, and rainwater entering the portal porch. The cathedral also received a new LED lighting system in 2018, conversion of historic chandeliers to LED lighting in 2019, and humidity control in 2021.
Burial complex and institutional continuity
The underground burial complex grew from Rudolf IV’s ducal crypt. Additional crypts beneath Stephansplatz were created after the surrounding cemetery was closed, and more than 10,000 bodies were deposited underground before Joseph II prohibited the practice in 1783. The former cemetery, the Stephansfreithof, had been closed in 1760, and its epitaphs were later incorporated into the cathedral’s inner and outer walls.
The ducal crypt was enlarged under Maria Theresa and reorganized in 1956. Its oval chamber contains 15 coffins of members of the Austrian ruling house, the Habsburgs, while a rectangular chamber contains urns with the hearts and entrails of 56 family members. In 41 cases, a member of the family received this divided burial, with remains distributed among Vienna’s traditional Habsburg burial places.
The bishops’ crypt contains copper coffins of bishops, prince-bishops, prince-archbishops, and archbishops of Vienna, including Melchior Khlesl, Sigismund von Kollonitz, Christoph Anton Migazzi, Friedrich Gustav Piffl, Theodor Innitzer, and Franz König. The canons’ crypt contains members of the cathedral chapter and some auxiliary bishops. Parts of the underground complex beneath Stephansplatz were destroyed during construction of a twentieth-century underground garage.
The cathedral’s treasury belongs to the Metropolitan Chapter of St. Stephen and the church administration. It contains sacred paintings, gold and silver work, hundreds of relics, and other historical objects. Among its valuable holdings are Rudolf IV’s gold-embroidered burial cloth and portrait. Objects are displayed in the Dom Museum Wien, the cathedral’s treasury exhibition, and the Wien Museum.
Recent uses and events
The cathedral hosted temporary artistic installations in 2020 to 2022, including Erwin Wurm’s large purple sweater and Billi Thanner’s illuminated Himmelsleiter, or Ladder to Heaven. In August 2021 the Barbara Chapel housed a vaccination facility during the COVID-19 pandemic, a use contested within the Church because of concerns about the chapel’s sacred character. On 16 March 2022, a hacker attack activated the computer-controlled festive bells for about twenty minutes during the night.
Remains
Overall form and materials
St. Stephen’s Cathedral is a three-nave church approximately 109 metres long and 72 metres wide. Other measurements give an external length of about 107.2 metres and a width of 34.2 metres across the three choirs. The south tower rises 136.4 metres. The nave is a pseudo-basilica, with a central vault above the side aisles and windowless upper walls, while the choir is a hall church in which the central and side aisles are approximately equal in height.
The principal building materials are limestone and limestone sandstone. Fine- and medium-grained sandstone came in large quantities from quarries around Mannersdorf and Au in the Leitha Mountains. Mannersdorf stone appears extensively in the Albertinian Choir, wall blocks, profiles, figures, window surrounds, tracery, and parts of the nave. The Dienstbotenmuttergottes statue was made from sandstone quarried at Atzgersdorf.
The nave contains four square vault bays, an arrangement that may have been inherited from the Romanesque predecessor. Intermediate piers at the outer wall cause the bays to rest on five supports and contain ten vault caps. The nave narrows eastward by about 1.1 metres, and its gable walls do not align exactly with the walls below. The choir axis deviates about one degree northward from the nave axis, with the south choir wall about 70 centimetres longer than the north wall. The nave follows the sunrise of 26 December, while the choir follows the sunrise of 2 January, the Sunday after Christmas.
Western facade and portals
Giant’s Gate
The western facade preserves the oldest visible fabric of the cathedral. Its fourteenth- and fifteenth-century design retains thirteenth-century elements, including the Giant’s Gate, the Heathen Towers, and the western gallery. A Gothic central window was inserted into the Romanesque west wall around 1420. Vertical pilasters and horizontal cornices organize the facade, whose parapet carries tracery, gargoyles, and three finials with figures of St. Lawrence, St. Stephen, and the Archangel Michael. The present figures are nineteenth-century copies of originals from about 1430, now in the Wien Museum.
The Giant’s Gate is the principal western portal between the two towers. Built in Romanesque style between 1230 and 1250, it was later transformed into a richly articulated funnel portal. Seven funnel-shaped columns on each side carry twisting plant ornament. Their capitals show apostles, saints, and scenes whose meanings are difficult to establish. The archivolts, bands of molding following the arch, surround a tympanum with Christ Pantocrator inside a mandorla, an almond-shaped aureole, and a cross nimbus.
Lions, a griffin, a seated figure possibly representing a judge, and animal and plant imagery also appear in the portal. Roman funerary fragments were incorporated into it, including the partly legible figure known as Mirona, identified in 1996. Excavation beneath and around the entrance revealed human burials and remains of earlier structures. The portal retains medieval polychromy, and seven historic paint layers were identified during the restoration of 1996 and 1997. Its traditional name is linked either to a mammoth or mastodon bone once displayed above it or to a Middle High German word associated with sinking or falling, referring to the funnel shape.
Heathen Towers
The two Heathen Towers are about 65 metres high. Their lower storeys are square and date from the twelfth century, while their octagonal upper storeys were probably built in the thirteenth century after the fire of 1258. Tooth-cut friezes, dwarf-arch cornices, pyramid roofs, crockets, and tracery galleries distinguish their elevations. Roman building stone may have been used in their construction. Their names have also been connected with the supposed resemblance of their octagonal roofs to minarets or with a meaning relating to great age.
The towers are not identical. They differ in the number of storeys and by about one metre in width. Each has two chapels placed one above the other on its outer side. The north side contains the Prince Eugene Chapel and the Chapel of St. Valentine, while the south side contains the Eligius Chapel and the Bartholomew Chapel. Figures of St. Lawrence and St. Stephen stand at the summits.
Side portals and exterior features
The Singers’ Gate, at the southwest beginning of the nave, is a pointed-arch Gothic portal from about 1360. It was used by the choir singers and as the usual entrance for men. Apostles occupy its jambs, and the tympanum shows scenes from the life of St. Paul. Statues of Duke Rudolf IV and Katharina of Bohemia identify the founders of the Gothic enlargement.
Opposite it, the Bishop’s Gate served bishops whose palace stood across from the cathedral and also functioned as the entrance for women. Its tympanum depicts the life and death of the Virgin Mary, with female saints in the jambs and the same founder figures found at the Singers’ Gate. A large early sixteenth-century wall painting in its porch shows a winged altarpiece with St. Leopold between St. Catherine and St. Margaret. Imperial and Austrian heraldry suggests a connection with the imperial court. Its preparatory drawing has led to a cautious association with Albrecht Durer.
The Adlers’ Gate beneath the north tower contains a seventeenth-century crowned Marian statue, an epitaph of the Lobenwein family from about 1583, and Joachim von Sandrart’s 1653 Crucifixion. The painting measures 6.97 by 4.12 metres and was transferred to the cathedral entrance in 2019 after wartime displacement, damage, storage, and restoration. Set into the left pillar is the still-rotatable Asylum Ring, or Leo, a rope or belt pulley. Tradition held that touching it placed fugitives under the protection of the Church, with the name referring to Duke Leopold the Glorious.
The Primtor, or Bell Gate, lies beneath the south tower. Its porch vault preserves four Evangelists and an angel, while a Marian figure with the Child from about 1420 stands on the central interior pillar. The cathedral’s outer walls retain two historic textile measures, the cloth and linen ells, which served as legal standards for checking goods. Epitaphs from the former cemetery also cover parts of the walls, commemorating figures including Johannes Cuspinianus, Paul Sorbait, Georg Slatkonia, Melchior Khlesl, and the stonemasons Franz Hies and Johann Georg Prunner.
Towers, roof, and gables
South tower
The south tower has a square ground plan that changes gradually into an octagon through a complex arrangement of gables. Twelve finial turrets rise below the summit, which is crowned by a double cross carried by a double eagle. Its original summit represented the sun and moon as symbols of spiritual and temporal power. These were replaced in 1686 after the symbols became associated with the Ottoman emblem.
Rising 136.4 metres, the tower has foundations less than four metres deep. Its completed height made it the highest freestanding structure in Europe for more than fifty years, and it remained Europe’s tallest tower until Strasbourg Minster was completed in 1439. The upper 40 metres were rebuilt between 1862 and 1864 in medieval stone technique. The 1864 helmet later required substantial repair, including work in 2008. Sensors installed in 2014 record lightning strikes near the lightning conductors.
The tower contains 13 bells, including the eleven-bell main festive peal. Its former fire-observation room, the Turmerstube, lies at about 72 metres and is reached by 343 steps. From 1534 a watchman used flags, lanterns, a speaking trumpet, and written messages to warn the city. Karl Ludwig von Littrow’s toposcope, introduced in 1835, allowed fire locations to be communicated by angles. The last tower watchman served until 31 December 1955. The historical mechanical clock was removed in 1861 and was not replaced.
North tower
The north tower was intended to match the south tower but remains incomplete. It reaches about 68 metres and is capped by a small octagonal Renaissance bell storey and hood, known as the Saphoy or Welsche Hood. A double eagle tops the hood, and the tower is consequently also called the Eagle Tower.
Roof and gables
The roof is about 110 metres long, approximately 35 metres wide, and rises about 37.5 metres above the nave and 25.3 metres above the choir. Its steep pitch allows rainwater to wash across the surface and limits snow accumulation. About 230,000 to 250,000 glazed tiles in ten colors form a zigzag pattern. Each tile weighs about 2.5 kilograms, is fixed with two copper nails, and is additionally bedded in mortar. The south side displays the Austrian imperial arms and the monogram of Emperor Francis I; the north side bears the arms of Vienna and the Republic of Austria.
The medieval larch-wood roof structure burned in 1945. A steel replacement weighing about 600 tonnes was built above concrete slabs inserted over the vaults in 1946 and 1948. The slabs protected the interior and provided working and storage surfaces during reconstruction. The rebuilt roof, which largely follows the former shape, was completed in November 1950.
Four gables rise above the southwest nave wall. The westernmost is the fifteenth-century Friedrich Gable, while the other three received tracery in 1853 to 1855. Cement, mixed materials, and the postwar steel roof required repeated restoration. The surviving southern facade preserves traces of ochre paint, painted black-and-white joints, and a dark gray medieval lime wash.
Interior sculpture and altars
Medieval sculpture and pulpit
Almost 90 high-level pillar sculptures fill the interior, mostly arranged in groups of three and commissioned by private donors. They include figures associated with the school of Niclas Gerhaert, notably the valuable St. Sebastian beside the organ support, as well as St. Anne, St. Helena, St. Andrew, St. Anthony the Hermit, Isaiah, St. Sophie with her three daughters, Judas Thaddeus, St. Wenceslaus, and an unidentified bishop. The capitals of the western gallery preserve the transition from Romanesque to Gothic design, combining dragons and other fabulous animals with Early Gothic forms derived from plant buds.
The late Gothic pulpit is made from Breitenbrunn limestone sandstone. Once attributed to Anton Pilgram, it is now more cautiously associated with the workshop of Niclas Gerhaert van Leyden. It rises from a stylized floral base and displays the four Church Fathers. Frogs, lizards, snakes, and other amphibians appear on the balustrade. Beneath the stairs, the Fenstergucker holds a square and compass, but the figure’s identity is unknown. The pulpit was restored repeatedly from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, dismantled in 1880, and later reassembled. Its original polychromy was lost.
High altar and devotional altars
The present Baroque high altar was commissioned by Prince-Bishop Philipp Friedrich Count Breuner on 1 March 1641 and consecrated on 19 May 1647. Johann Jacob Pock built it and Tobias Pock painted the altarpiece. The marble-and-stone Porta Coeli, or Gate of Heaven, altar takes the form of a portal and is dedicated to the stoning of St. Stephen. A statue of the Immaculate Conception stands above it. Painted on tin plates across about 28 square metres, the altarpiece places the stoning before Jerusalem and includes saints among the crowd, referring to the cathedral’s second dedication to All Saints. Polish, Styrian, and Tyrolean marble form parts of the altar.
The Wiener Neustadt Altar is a Gothic winged altar dated 1447. Its scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary are accompanied by 72 saint figures. Made for the Cistercian monastery at Wiener Neustadt, it arrived at St. Stephen’s in 1881. After the 1945 destruction it temporarily replaced the high altar, then moved to the north aisle when the choir was rebuilt in 1950.
The Maria Potsch altar stands beneath the Late Gothic Ochsl Baldachin. Its image is a copy of an Eastern Christian icon made at Potsch in Hungary. Emperor Leopold I ordered its transfer to Vienna in 1697 after a reported miracle of tears. It was moved to its present position after 1945 and remains a focus of devotion, especially for Hungarian worshippers.
Matthias Steinl built the Joseph Altar around 1700 at the southern eastern nave pier. Its figures represent the Evangelists, and Anton Schoonjans painted the St. Joseph altarpiece on metal. The facing Women’s Altar forms a corresponding ensemble. At the first southwest pier, the red-marble Johannes or Family Altar is associated with Steinl. Michael Rottmayr painted its scene of the naming of John the Baptist, flanked by statues of Francis of Assisi and Anthony of Padua.
Tombs and chapels
Niclas Gerhaert van Leyden began the monumental tomb of Emperor Frederick III in the south choir in 1463. Completed in 1513 after his death, it is made of Adnet marble. The portrait-like cover slab weighs more than eight tonnes. Max Velmet made the side reliefs, while Michael Tichter created the balustrade with 54 figures. Apostles, grotesques, rulers, bishops, monks, heraldry, and a reclining image of the emperor in coronation dress refer to Frederick’s religious foundations.
A damaged cenotaph of Duke Rudolf IV and his wife stands in the north choir beside the Wiener Neustadt Altar. It originally occupied the central choir, with a portrait of Rudolf above it. The Prince Eugene Chapel, also called the Morandus, Cross, Tirna, Liechtenstein, or Savoy Chapel, occupies the lower northwest chapel. It contains Prince Eugene of Savoy’s tomb and a Baroque altar from 1731 surmounted by a Late Gothic cross. A marble epitaph for Prince Eugene and a relative was commissioned in 1754.
The Chapel of St. Valentine above it was completed around 1480 and contains the cathedral’s relic collection. A sarcophagus attributed to St. Valentine stands in the center. Restoration in 2012 revealed consecration crosses and late fifteenth-century student graffiti associated with an initiation ritual. Above the Eligius Chapel, the Bartholomew Chapel is also known as the Royal or Ducal Chapel. Its Habsburg Windows, medieval images of members of Austria’s ruling dynasty, were removed to museums in 1887. Their return and reinstallation began in 2011 and was completed in 2024 with protective glazing and climate monitoring. Two Gothic keystones show the Archangel Michael weighing souls and defeating a dragon.
The octagonal Chapel of St. Catherine, or Baptismal Chapel, was consecrated beside the south tower in 1395. Its red Adnet-marble font was completed in 1481. The fourteen-sided basin and wooden seven-sided crown depict the sacraments, Evangelists, apostles, and scenes from the life of Christ. Until 1945 the crown served as the pulpit sounding board before returning to the font.
The Chapel of St. Barbara beside the north tower was consecrated in 1447 and was originally dedicated to St. Urban. Its Late Gothic cross contains receptacles with ashes from Auschwitz and earth from Mauthausen. The chapel also holds a bust of Blessed Maria Restituta Kafka, who was killed under National Socialism. In the north tower hall, the original Gothic Toothache Christ shows Christ as the Man of Sorrows. It once stood outside the cathedral and was replaced there by a copy in 1960. Its popular name derives from a legend that students mocked its expression and were punished with toothache.
Sacristies, chapter hall, bells, and organs
The upper sacristy at the eastern north end was enlarged in the seventeenth century and fitted out in the early eighteenth century. Martino Altomonte painted frescoes of scenes from the life of St. Stephen, Johann Michael Bolla supplied the stucco, and a marble fountain dates from 1718. The lower sacristy on the west side of the south tower replaced a Gothic sacristy. Its decoration includes stucco by Giovanni Maria Antonio Tencalla, frescoes by Altomonte showing Elijah and the judgment on Mount Carmel and the handing of the keys to Peter, a large Gothic wooden crucifix from about 1420, figures of Mary and John by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt from 1768, and Baroque intarsia furniture.
The chapter hall, also called the relic sacristy, lies south of the cathedral. It formerly housed the relic treasury and now serves as the meeting room of the twelve-member cathedral chapter. A fifteenth-century wall painting was discovered on its exterior in 1942. The cathedral contains 22 functioning bells, including 20 liturgical bells and two clock bells, distributed among the north tower, south tower, and north Heathen Tower.
The Pummerin hangs in the north tower. Cast in 1951 from the metal of its destroyed predecessor and donated by Upper Austria, it is Austria’s largest bell and one of Europe’s largest freely swinging church bells. It is rung on major feasts, New Year’s Eve, and exceptional occasions. The south tower’s festive peal consists of eleven bells cast in 1960 by the Pfundner foundry. Grassmayr modernized their installation in 2020 while retaining the steel bell frame. The north Heathen Tower contains historic auxiliary bells, including the Chorglockl, the oldest surviving cathedral bell, made after the city fire of 1276.
The organs include an 18-stop choir organ from 1952, the Kauffmann organ built between 1956 and 1960 with 125 stops and about 10,000 pipes, the 55-stop Rieger Domorgel of 1991, and the mobile Haydn organ completed in 2009 with 12 stops. Rieger restored the Kauffmann organ, which was ceremonially blessed in 2020. The organ support on the north wall bears an apparent 1513 self-portrait of Anton Pilgram. The figure wears a doctor’s cap and academic gown and holds a square and compass.
Windows, light, and commemorative remains
Most medieval stained glass was replaced with colorless glazing during the Baroque period. Neo-Gothic windows installed between 1854 and 1901 were destroyed in the 1945 fire. Most present windows use postwar colored glass donated by Tyrol. Medieval originals survive behind the high altar and in parts of the Bartholomew Chapel.
The cathedral’s eastward orientation creates two annual light effects. On 26 December sunlight illuminates the patron saint’s image on the high altar, while on 6 January it illuminates the crowns of the Magi. The former cemetery’s epitaphs remain part of the building’s fabric. Among them is the large exterior Lackner Mount of Olives, which depicts Christ at Gethsemane and commemorates the merchant Lienhard Lackner and his family.
The 1894 Turkish Liberation Monument, designed by Edmund Hellmer to commemorate the repulsed Ottoman siege of 1683, was destroyed when the old Pummerin fell during the 1945 fire. It was reconstructed in fragmentary form, while surviving damaged figures are kept in the lapidarium of the lower church. The cathedral’s approximately 30 underground burial chambers, its layered portals and towers, its surviving sculpture, and its reconstructed roof together preserve the physical record of more than eight centuries of religious, dynastic, civic, and architectural change.
