Church · Innstadt

Mariahilf Pilgrimage Church

Above the Innstadt, on the Mariahilf hill, rises the Mariahilf Pilgrimage Church, one of the most important Marian shrines in Bavaria. It goes back to the devotional image 'Mary, Help of Christians' by the painter Lucas Cranach the Elder; a copy reached Passau in 1622 and sparked a major pilgrimage movement that brought comfort to many people in times of war and plague. The fervent invocation 'Maria hilf!' ('Mary, help!') spread from here across all of Central Europe and gave countless churches the same name.

The plain Baroque church is reached by a covered pilgrims' stairway of 321 steps, built in 1631, which climbs straight up the hill. Along its walls, countless votive tablets, paintings and inscriptions of thanks bear impressive witness to the popular piety of many generations — a quiet, atmospheric ascent that devout pilgrims once made on their knees.

Once at the top, the view is doubly rewarding: the resident Pauline Fathers shape the spiritual life of the pilgrimage site, and from the forecourt and the monastery terrace a magnificent panorama opens over the Innstadt, St Stephen's Cathedral and the old-town peninsula across the turquoise-green Inn. The Mariahilf hill is thus both a place of pilgrimage and one of the city's finest viewpoints.