Vienna's St. Stephen's Cathedral, or Stephansdom, is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vienna. It is also the symbol of the city and its most-visited tourist attraction, with nearly three million visitors per year. It's iconic enough that the Josef Manner company contributed to one of the cathedral's restoration projects in return for the rights to use a small picture of the cathedral on the packaging for its wafers (you can find these in the U.S. at import stores – they're quite tasty).

The cathedral is in fact impossible for a tourist of any ambition to ignore, being located in the center of the old town and being the most massive thing in the vicinity. The cathedral also has many distinctive features, the two most obvious probably being its 448-foot-tall gothic tower and its intricately-tiled roof. Most of the roof has a multicolored zig-zag pattern, but a smaller section above the main altar depicts Austrian coats of arms.


The cathedral is located in the middle of an open space called the Stephansplatz, which is a natural place for people to accumulate – it's in the center of the old town, both geographically and spiritually. This situation is exploited by salespeople of all stripes. The square and its surroundings are a major shopping area, with many high- and medium-end stores (though not much in the way of bargain places). Political evangelists wield signs attempting to sway people to their way of thinking (or at least to get the word out that they're more virtuous than you are). A queue of carriages waits on the far side of the cathedral to take passengers on atmospheric (with a bit of eau de horse) tours of the old town. And a gauntlet of vendors wearing baroque clothing (and sometimes wigs and occasionally sandwich boards) sells tickets to classical music concerts.


Adding to the crowd, the square is also on top of a major U-Bahn station, where two lines of the subway intersect. Nella and I crawled up out of this station, oriented ourselves (the cathedral is pretty easy to locate), and headed for the entrance. We had to dodge a few ticket vendors, but eventually we reached the doorway, found in the western end of the church.

The western façade and towers are the oldest part of the cathedral, constructed as part of a Romanesque church built in the 13th Century. In the 14th Century, a choir was added to the east end of the church, in the newly fashionable Gothic style. The choir was built to be as wide as the church's transept, making it wider than the rest of the church. After the choir's completion, it was decided to widen the narrow part of the church (also in the Gothic style) to match the choir. In order to avoid disrupting services any more than necessary, the Gothic walls were built outside the old Romanesque walls as services continued. After the outer walls were completed (early in the 15th Century), the Romanesque walls were disassembled. At this time the roof was added, being built with a steep incline to prevent accumulation of snow, and with an internal wooden support structure that would last 500 years. Vaulting and other work on the inside of the cathedral continued until 1511, when major construction work came to an end. One consequence of this work sequence was a mismatch of the cathedral's towers. The Gothic south tower of the cathedral (the 448-foot spire that survives today) was completed in 1433, and work began on a matching north tower in 1450. But by 1511, the Renaissance was underway, and Gothic was judged to be so 15th Century, so construction was halted. Later, a Renaissance-style "cap" was added to the north tower (by this time about half the height of the south tower), and the builders called it a day.

During most of this, the Stephansdom was not a cathedral. Vienna was part of the Diocese of Passau, and St. Stephen's was considered to be a parish church. The Viennese were not happy with this situation, and for many years asked succeeding popes whether they could please have their own diocese. They were always turned down, however, because of resistance from the Bishops of Passau. But this changed in 1469, when Frederick III, the first Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor, was able to get agreement from Pope Paul II to form the Diocese of Vienna. And later, in 1722, Charles VI was able to get Vienna a promotion to archdiocese from Pope Innocent XIII.

Over the centuries, the Stephansdom supplied services to the famous of Austria, including weddings (e.g. Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) and funerals (e.g. Mozart, Antonio Vivaldi, Franz Joseph I, Kurt Waldheim). The cathedral has also been a burial place, for the aforementioned Frederick III and for Prince Eugene of Savoy (a great general who successfully led Habsburg armies for many years in the 17th and 18th Centuries), among others, who have their own tombs. In addition, many are buried in the Cathedral's crypt, some in coffins, and many who were tossed into pits in the crypt during a plague epidemic in 1735 and at other times (apparently there are the remains of thousands, many in piles of nicely-stacked bones). An occasional burial (e.g. of a deceased archbishop) still occurs in the crypt. And in keeping with the Habsburg tradition of burying bits and pieces of people in different places, there are more than 60 jars in the special ducal crypt containing royal hearts and entrails. The gruesome-minded of you might be asking yourself, "What would happen if one of these jars were to become unsealed?" You don't really need to imagine this – the details are sketchy (one envisages a member of the custodial staff being careless with a vacuum cleaner), but apparently this very thing happened, not long ago. The result was a smell that was so beyond description that no one could be persuaded to go down and fix it for a day or two.

But to continue with the history of the cathedral (and possibly regain some composure), the Stephansdom was to stand, without major damage, until World War II. Toward the end of the war, much of the city was targeted by Allied bombing, but not the cathedral. As the Nazis retreated in the waning days of the war, there were orders to destroy the cathedral on the way out (Nazis being Nazis, I guess). But the orders were disobeyed by a German captain who thought this would be a horrible thing to do. So the Stephansdom escaped typical forms of military destruction. Instead, it was damaged on April 12, 1945 by a fire that had been started by looters in surrounding buildings. This fire spread to the roof of the cathedral, causing its 500-year-old wooden support structure (and the roof it was holding up) to collapse. Fortunately, the possibility of some sort of collapse had been anticipated, and many of the immovable works of art in the cathedral (some appearing below) were protected by brick structures that had been built around them. But some damage unfortunately could not be prevented – notably, a set of beautifully-carved 1487 choir stalls was lost.

Reconstruction work on the cathedral started almost immediately. There was a limited reopening in 1948, and a full reopening in 1952. The new roof was completed (with a steel support structure) in 1950, a year commemorated in the tiles surrounding one of the new coat-of-arms sections. Since the 50's the cathedral (particularly the south tower) has continually been undergoing restoration work – there was some scaffolding on the building's south side during our visit, but it was not intrusive to our appreciation of the building.

Entry to the church is free, but most of the interior is only accessible to those who buy tickets. There is a fence near the back of the church you can see through, but full exploration of the church requires a ticket. Apparently most visitors do not buy tickets, and are content to look through the fence, but we paid for admission and found it to be well worth the price. There is a small ticket counter at the left end of the fence, and there are different packages you can buy. We bought tickets that included admission to the church, the Treasury and the north tower, along with audioguides. There was much to see, and the requirement to buy tickets had the welcome effect of reducing the crowd size to a level much more manageable than the crush of people peering through the fence.

Once past the ticket counter, visitors are allowed to wander around the cathedral at will and to photograph whatever looks interesting to them. Generally speaking, the interior is on the dim side, but it's not difficult to get decent pictures of most things. We first headed for the main focus of the church, this being the high altar in the front. At 351 feet, the church is longer than a football field, so this was something of a walk, but we planned on going to the front first and working our way back. The main altar dates back to 1647, and the large painting on it depicts St. Stephen being stoned to death outside the walls of Jerusalem. Not the most cheerful subject, but probably unavoidable, given the name of the church. At the top of the altarpiece is a statue of the Virgin Mary, and just below her is a small painting, also of the Virgin Mary. The stained glass windows behind the altar are the only surviving originals in the church.


The Stephansdom has three naves. The one to the left of the central nave is devoted to the Holy Mother (also called the Women's Nave), and the one to the right is dedicated to the apostles. At the head of the Women’s Nave, to the left of the high altar is the 1447 Wiener Neustädter Altar, which depicts scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary. It was apparently constructed using elements that were even older, and is thought to have been constructed at the request of Frederick III. Frederick had a sort of "trademark" he liked to have stamped onto various creations for which he was responsible, this being the letters "A.E.I.O.U.", and these letters can be found repeated twice in the detailed photo below, above the center "windows" at the bottom of the altarpiece (the U looks like a V – this was the style). Nobody is quite sure what the "A.E.I.O.U." is supposed to have stood for, besides the obvious collection of vowels. The altar is named for the city of Wiener Neustadt, from whose monastery it was acquired in 1884. To the right of the altar there is an apparent marble tomb belonging to Duke Rudolf IV, who died in 1365. But the duke and his wife are actually buried in the Ducal Crypt, and the marble behemoth is a cenotaph.


At the head of the Apostles' Nave, on the other side of the high altar, is an actual tomb. This one is occupied by Frederick III himself. The tomb is sculpted from red marble and is considered a masterpiece of late Middle Age sculpture. It is covered with 240 sculptures, including many of small creatures, and was sculpted over a period of 45 years, beginning 25 years before Frederick's death. Also near the head of the Apostles' Nave is the choir organ, which, despite being built relatively recently, is mechanically operated.


From the Apostles' Nave, we headed toward the back of the church, as we wanted to get a closer look at the cathedral's pulpit, located not far from the ticket counter (it was built toward the back so more people could hear). Again, the pulpit is considered a sculptural masterpiece of its period, which pretty much coincided with that of Frederick III's tomb. In fact, recent thinking credits it to the same artist, Nikolaus Gerhaert van Leyden, though there seems to be some doubt about this (it was long thought to be the work of a sculptor named Anton Pilgram). Depicted around the outside of the pulpit are the four original Doctors of the Church (St. Augustine of Hippo, St. Ambrose, St. Gregory the Great and St. Jerome), and the handrail of the staircase leading up to the pulpit is decorated with small renderings of toads and lizards. Underneath the pulpit is what appears to be a self-portrait of the sculptor, looking out of a window. This unsigned self-portrait is fondly known as the Fenstergucker (window gawker).



From the pulpit we walked through the naves, looking at the many altars and memorials displayed. Some are along the outside walls of the cathedral, and some are attached to the columns between the naves.





Part way down the Apostles' Nave there is an exit, in the base of the south tower. But before getting to the door, there is another door to the left, through which you can see into a small chapel known as St. Catherine's Chapel. This is the baptismal chapel for the cathedral. In addition to an altar, this chapel holds a baptismal font and a cover for it, both elaborately carved and both from 1481.


It's possible to walk part way up the south tower (no elevator), but you need to have a ticket for it. Instead, we purchased tickets for the north tower, which does have an elevator, so we headed for the elevator entrance, off the Women's Nave. Even though the north tower is much shorter than the south tower (223 feet vs. 448 feet), it seems quite tall when looking down from the top and it does offer a fine view of the northern half of Vienna. But looking south, you instead have a fine view of the cathedral's roof.







Toward the north there is an amusement park called the Prater, and from the north tower it's possible to see a Ferris wheel, known as the Riesenrad, located at the entrance to this park. The Riesenrad was built in 1897 to celebrate Franz Joseph's Golden Jubilee as emperor. At 212 feet tall, the Riesenrad was quite tall for its time, but other Ferris wheels in Europe and the U.S. were taller. But over time these other wheels were demolished (there was also a plan to demolish the Riesenrad in 1916, but it proved to be too expensive), and by surviving, the Riesenrad became the tallest Ferris wheel in the world in 1920, retaining that status until 1985, when the Technostar wheel (279 feet) was unveiled in Japan. The Riesenrad played a memorable part in the post-war movie The Third Man, when a creepy Orson Welles looked down from it and remarked that the people below were like "little dots", and that it would be insignificant if one of them "stopped moving, forever".

Another interesting sight from the north tower is much closer, this being a large bell on the tower itself, called the Pummerin ("Boomer"). The Pummerin was originally cast in 1705, using metal from Turkish cannons captured in the 1683 Siege of Vienna. The original bell was destroyed in 1945 in the fire that also destroyed the cathedral's roof. It was recast in 1951 using metal from the original bell, plus some additional metal from a few surviving Turkish cannons that had been kept in a military museum. The new bell weighs more than 44,000 pounds, and is the third largest in Europe, after bells in Cologne, Germany and Rovereto, Italy. It is only rung on high Catholic holidays and New Years' Day, plus on days of state funerals.

Returning back down the elevator into the church, we headed for the Treasury, reached via a stairway up to the gallery at the west end of the cathedral. The Treasury was filled with beautiful, valuable and historical items, but the first thing we noticed was the bird's-eye view of the entire church that we could see from the balcony.


Turning around to examine the Treasury items, we were first confronted by gigantic organ pipes at close quarters, and were very thankful that nobody was playing anything. The main organ of the cathedral was installed in 1960, financed by public donations to replace the old organ, which did not survive the war. We also quickly came across the keyboard, which looked complicated.

We finally made our way to the Treasury, much of which is behind the organ pipes. As is common among cathedral treasuries, many of the items on display were either relics or containers for relics.




Another item in the Treasury was a painting known as the Maria Pòcs Icon. This icon was painted in 1676 and was displayed in the church in the town of Pòcs in Hungary. In 1696 the painting was reputed to have miraculous properties, with the Virgin in the painting seen on occasion to be crying real tears. Emperor Leopold I though the icon might be in danger in Hungary, as Turkish armies still controlled much of the country, so he had it brought to the Stephansdom in 1697 for its protection. The crying has not happened since, though a number of other miraculous occurrences have been attributed to the painting. Eventually the people of Pòcs wanted their icon back, but the emperor sent them a copy instead. The people weren't happy at first, but the copy was soon seen to exhibit tears and other miraculous properties, so they were happy enough. Back in Vienna, a number of frames have been created for the icon, including a frame called the Rosa Mystica, created on its arrival. This was the frame we saw in the Treasury.

We also found other artworks in the Treasury, of differing types. One of them, the Hutstocker grave monument, was created in 1523 but was largely destroyed in 1945. Some of the fragments have been reassembled for display.



After finishing with the Treasury, we returned to our hotel to rest. As usual, we had ambitious plans for the following day. These included a day trip upriver, to visit the town of Melk.