St. Stephen's Cathedral

In 1407, Prince Bishop Georg v. Hohenlohe (1390-1423) laid the foundation for the construction of a late Gothic cathedral in Passau. The construction period came to around 160 years, but as it was with other Gothic cathedrals in Europe, this cathedral was also an unfinished sacred building after the end of its construction measures between the years 1565 and 1570.

New reputation for Passau

With this foundation, the city of Passau experienced an increase of its economic, social, artistic and cultural significance in the Danube area. The construction measures on the late Gothic cathedral, its dimensions and features, the use of different material, the bold statics on the nave and crossing tower, the subtle structural outline of the chancel, as well as the number of used workforce, received admiration over many generations by the respective contemporaries.

Passau had never seen or experienced such a high workforce of stonemasons, bricklayers, carpenters, painters, sculptors, carvers, gold and silver smiths, suppliers, distributors and guilds before. In 1444, Eneas Silvio Piccolomini, later known as Pope Pius II., wrote to Rome from Passau: “A magnificent chancel is being built here”.

Cologne, Strasbourg, Vienna - and Passau

In 1480, the cathedral builder’s hut of Passau received its rank as a main builder’s hut on the fourth place after Cologne, Strasbourg and Vienna. The cathedral’s master builders were between 1407 until 1530: Hans Krummenauer from the Parler school in Prague, Ulrich Seidenschwanz, Hans Hesse, Jörg Windisch, Hans Mitterberger, Hans Lindorfer, Hans Frank and Georg Stuehl, each successively. In the area around the cathedral construction, the artistic family Frueauf and Kriechbaum settled down in Passau’s Altstadt at the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th century. From 1510/15 to 1553, the painter and builder Wolf Huber worked and lived in Passau as one of the master builders of the so-called “Donaustil”, the Danube style.

Significant illustrations, such as the woodcut in the “Schedelschen Weltchronik” (the Nuremburg Chronicle) from 1480, the woodcut “Darstellung Jesu im Tempel” (the Depiction of Jesus Christ in the Temple) with the interior of Passau’s late Gothic cathedral made by Wolf Huber around the years 1523 and 1525 and the “Stich von Abent” (the Engraving of Abent) from 1576 are still demonstrative documents of the Gothic cathedral in Passau.

Then came the great fire

1662, nearly 90 years after the completion of the Gothic cathedral, a great fire destroyed the whole medieval City of Three Rivers. Only the chancel, the crossing tower and transept of the Gothic cathedral remained, which were included in the reconstruction by the Italian baroque architects Carlone and Lurago.

New baroque glory

Today, Passau’s cathedral is one of the biggest Italian baroque buildings north of the Alps. Within, the world’s largest cathedral organ can be listened to with five individual installations, 17,974 pipes and 233 registers.  When the organist plays the five pieces - the main organ, the epistle and gospel organ on the west gallery, the choir organ at the chancel’s entrance and the Fernorgel in the attic (sounds through the so-called Heiliggeist-Loch, a sound outlet installed in an illustration of the Holy Spirit), in the cathedral’s nave, the melody and tones sound through the whole church room. As unique as the cathedral organ is the modern and monumental figurine high altar, which depicts the stoning of the cathedral’s patron saint Stephen and which can be found in the front of the former Gothic window facade.

With its 17,974 pipes and its 233 registers in five organ pieces, which can be played all together from one main key desk, the organ in the St. Stephen’s Cathedral is still a unique and technical marvel. It comprises five individual pieces that are spatially separated:

• The main organ at the main entrance
• Epistle and gospel organ on the west galleries of the aisles
• Choir organ at the chancel’s entrance
• The so-called Fernorgel directly above the “Heiliggeist-Loch” (a sound outlet installed in an illustration of the Holy Spirit) of the middle fresco in the cathedral’s nave located in the attic; the sounds reach the church room through this outlet

120 kilometres of cable

The largest organ pipe has a length of over eleven metres and weighs 306 kilogrammes. The sounds with around 16 vibrations per second are at the lowest audible range for the human ear. The smallest pipes have a length of six millimetres. With around 16,000 hertz, they are at the highest audible range for the human ear. 12 kilometres of cable are laid out in the facility. The baroque casing of the main organ date back to the year 1731, the baroque casings of the epistle and gospel organs to the year 1715.

Expanding on the work by Steinmeier between 1924 and 1928, the organ of today was redesigned by Passau’s organ building company Eisenbarth between 1978 and 1981. The company is still in charge of the organ’s maintenance and care.

• Limited accessibility (small thresholds at the entrance)
• Entrance „Steinweg“ barrier-free with mobile ramp
• 2 public disabled parkings at cathedral square, in front of building Domplatz 11
• Public handicapped lavatory nearby at Zengergasse (open door with Euro key)
• Induction loop
• Audio-guides for guided tours