St. Stephen's Cathedral, Passau

Stand still on the cobbles of the cathedral square for a moment. The stones are uneven and worn smooth, and they rise slightly under your feet. You are standing on the highest point of Passau's old town. Look up and three green domes rise above the rooftops. Behind them, unseen from here, three rivers meet. On a quiet morning you can sometimes hear only pigeons, a bicycle bell, and the distant ring of the cathedral bells.

This is the Cathedral of Saint Stephen, the mother church of one of the oldest dioceses in the German-speaking world. Saint Stephen was the first Christian martyr. According to the Bible, he was stoned to death for his faith in Jerusalem. His name is carried by churches across Central Europe. And here is the first surprise. The far more famous Saint Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna was once a daughter church of this one.

That sounds unlikely when you look at Passau today. It is a small, quiet city on the Bavarian border with Austria. But for centuries, the bishops of Passau ruled one of the largest dioceses in the Holy Roman Empire, the loose union of states that covered much of Central Europe. Their spiritual territory ran east along the Danube, deep into what is now Austria, all the way to Vienna. Vienna only received its own bishop in the late fifteenth century.

Passau's position explains that power. The old town sits on a narrow tongue of land. On one side runs the Danube. On the other runs the Inn, flowing down from the Alps. A third, smaller river, the Ilz, joins from the north. Whoever held this point controlled river traffic, trade and salt. A church has stood on this hilltop since the early Middle Ages, and the cathedral grew larger as the bishops grew richer.

Now look closely at the building in front of you. Much of what you see is Baroque, the dramatic, richly decorated style of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But this was not the original plan. In 1662, a great fire swept through Passau. It destroyed large parts of the city and badly damaged the earlier Gothic cathedral. The bishops decided to rebuild, and they turned to Italian craftsmen to do it.

The architect was Carlo Lurago, a master builder from the lakes region of northern Italy. He did something clever. He kept parts of the burned Gothic church and wrapped a new Baroque body around them. If you walk around to the eastern end of the cathedral, you can see the result. There, the older Gothic stonework still shows its pointed windows and slender buttresses. Two eras of building stand side by side, joined into one church.

Now step inside. The first thing most visitors notice is the colour — or rather, the near absence of it. The interior is a sea of white. Thick white stucco, a kind of moulded plaster, covers the walls and ceilings. It curls into garlands, shells, angels and frames. This work was led by Giovanni Battista Carlone, another Italian master. Stand in the nave and let your eyes travel upward. There is very little bare surface anywhere.

Between the stucco frames, painted ceiling frescoes add colour. The frescoes were created by Italian painters, with Carpoforo Tencalla among the leading names. Frescoes are painted directly onto fresh wet plaster, so the artist had to work quickly, section by section. Look for the soft blues, golds and pinks against all that white. The effect is meant to draw your gaze toward heaven. On a bright day, light from the high windows makes the whole ceiling seem to float.

Here is the second surprise, and it is the one Passau is proudest of. Above you, in several parts of the church, stands the cathedral organ. It is one of the largest church organs in the world. It is not a single instrument but several organ sections placed around the building. A musician can play them together from one main console. The pipes number in the many thousands, from tiny ones the size of a pencil to giant ones taller than a house.

If you can, time your visit for one of the organ concerts held here, especially in the warmer months. Hearing the sound is a physical experience. The lowest notes are felt in the chest as much as heard by the ears. Because the sections are spread around the church, the music can seem to move through the space. It comes from behind you, then from above, then from the front.

Walk slowly toward the front of the church. The high altar is much newer than the surrounding decoration. It was created in the twentieth century and shows the stoning of Saint Stephen. Its style is plainer and more modern than the Baroque stucco around it. Some visitors find the contrast striking. Others barely notice it at first. Look for the gilded pulpit along the nave as well. Its carved gold detail shines against the white walls.

When you step back outside, take a moment in the square. A statue of a Bavarian king stands here, a reminder that Passau became part of Bavaria in the early nineteenth century. Until then, the city was ruled by its prince-bishops, who were both church leaders and political rulers. Behind the cathedral, the elegant square of the bishops' residence shows how they lived. The streets around you still follow the old medieval pattern.

As you walk away, look down the narrow lanes toward the rivers. On some buildings near the water, you will find marks showing how high past floods reached. Passau has lived with its rivers for its entire history. They brought wealth, and sometimes disaster. Pause once more and look back at the three green domes above the rooftops. They have watched over this meeting of waters for centuries... and they will still be there as you cross the bridge toward the next part of your day.