Explore Religious Heritage Across Europe

St. Stephen's Basilica, the largest Catholic church in Budapest, was built between 1851 and 1901 in a neoclassical style. It is a listed national monument.

You can not think of Vienna without thinking of the St. Stephen Cathedral. This notorious religious building is well recognizable for its four towers, the tallest of which - south tower- measures 136.44 meters. 343 steps bring visitors to the tower room, from which there is a breathtaking view across Vienna. Besides the beautiful altars and side chapels, the cathedral is also home to a vast treasury, which includes relics decorated with gold and precious stones, liturgical books and vestments.

The present building of St. Stephen's Church was built after 1380 on a former pre-1188 church. It was not until 1714 that the north tower was given a baroque dome after the original roof had been destroyed in a city fire some 100 years earlier. Remains of a 14th century painting can be seen around a large hole in the nave vault. They depict four angels with the instruments of Christ's suffering as well as scriptures.

St. Stephen's Church in Mainz was founded in 990 by Archbishop Willigis. The present church was built later, from 1267 to 1340, but has retained the plan of the Willigis building. From 1462 to 1499, the cloister was added to the south side. During the Baroque period, the interior of St. Stephen's Church was decorated accordingly, but in 1857 a nearby powder magazine tower exploded, causing the church to lose its Baroque furnishings.

St. Stephen's Church was built in 1777 in the Baroque style. It was built and probably also designed by Master Hoffer. The church became a parish in 1793. Between 1876 and 1879, and in 1881-82, the ceiling was painted by the painter Dominik Fabris. As the frescoes faded with time, Dean Erzar had them renovated in 1910.

The St. Thomas Church was built on a Romanesque church of the twelfth century. Between 1492 and 1496, it took the current form of a late-Gothic Hall church. In the 19th century finally, the interior of the Saint-Thomas church was renovated in the neo-Gothic style.

St. Ulrich's Church was built from a porch, which served as a market for St. Ulrich pilgrims and as a burial place for the inhabitants of Augsburg. As early as 1457, the first conversion into a Benedictine sermon house for the community of St. Ulrich took place. In 1526, the church was given to the Protestants as a parish church, a use which it would not have definitively until the Peace of Westphalia (1648). In 1709-10, the congregation led by Marx Loeser decided to fundamentally rebuild the church, which was in need of renovation in the meantime, and the church received approximately its present appearance.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Ulrich was built between 1452 and 1503. The choir tower church has a nave 16 metres long and 11.5 metres wide, and a square choir under the tower, supported by a four-metre ribbed vault. The galleries and barrel vault of the nave date from 1704. The old two-storey bell tower was raised around 1730 and fitted with a baroque dome. Extensive restoration work was carried out from 1990 onwards and was awarded the Thuringian Monument Protection Prize in 2006.

St. Ursula is one of the twelve Romanesque churches of Cologne. Its building was built in the 12th century, but after serious damage during the 2nd World War, a reconstruction took place until 1974.

St. Valentine's Church dates mainly from the late 15th and early 16th centuries, with the side aisles of the church dating back to 1380. The construction of the church building was financed by donations from pilgrims who made a pilgrimage to the relics of St. Valentine. These relics arrived in Kiedrich around 1350 from the neighbouring Cistercian abbey in Eberbach. The church organ is one of the oldest still playable organs in the world, probably built from 1491 onwards. However, over the centuries the instrument has been transformed several times, most notably in 1653 by Johann Wendelin Kirchner.