Cathedral & Churches in Passau

As a bishop's seat for many centuries, Passau is a city of churches, and no building embodies this more impressively than St Stephen's Cathedral. Its baroque interior, with lavish stucco and frescoes, is regarded as a masterpiece of Italian craftsmanship north of the Alps, and the largest cathedral organ in the world fills the vast nave with sound during the organ recitals. The green towers above the old town reveal at a glance how central faith has been to the life of the City of Three Rivers.

Yet the cathedral is only the beginning. Above the Inn, the pilgrimage church of Mariahilf invites visitors up a covered stairway of hundreds of steps to a quiet vantage point. In the Innstadt district stands the ancient St Severin, one of the oldest churches in Bavaria, and around the city monasteries and collegiate courts bear witness to its spiritual past.

This category gathers the sacred treasures of Passau and its surroundings. It combines architecture and devotion, views and history, and shows how closely church-building, the baroque and the setting on the Danube, Inn and Ilz are interwoven here.