Vienna St. Stephen's Cathedral

About the St. Stephen's Cathedral

St. Stephen's Cathedral is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vienna and the seat of the Archbishop of Vienna. This magnificent Gothic cathedral, with its distinctive tiled roof, has stood at the heart of Vienna for over 700 years.

Vienna's skyline has been defined since the Middle Ages by the church begun after 1137, when Babenberg margrave Leopold IV agreed with the Bishop of Passau to build it; the Gothic reconstruction was launched under Duke Rudolf IV in 1359. Its south tower, finished in 1433 and rising about 136 metres, long served as a watch post over the city, and the roof's glazed tiles display the Habsburg double eagle and Vienna's coat of arms. Mozart married Constanze Weber there in 1782. After the roof and vaults burned in April 1945, Austrian provinces financed the restoration completed in 1952, making the rebuilt cathedral and its Pummerin bell, which rings in the New Year, a marker of national recovery.