St. Gallus
St. Gallus is a Romanesque church beside the eastern city wall in lower Augsburg, considered the city’s oldest surviving church. Its small scale gives it the nickname Galluskirchlein.
A Christian building stood here around 900, probably above a Roman sanctuary dedicated to Mercury. Archaeologists found the apse foundation of the largest Roman basilica discovered east of the Rhine beneath the church. Pope Leo IX consecrated the present building in 1051. The Reformation, the Peace of Religion, and renovations in 1578, 1662, and 1759 shaped its later history. Secularization closed the church in 1806, before services resumed and different communities used the space.
Elesinde, the first abbess of St. Stephan, lies buried beside the altar beneath her 1589 epitaph. The altar from around 1760 carries a wooden Saint Gallus, while a Strahlenkranzmadonna crowns the eastern ceiling bay. A narrow nearby alley is linked by legend with Martin Luther’s escape from Augsburg in 1518.
- City
- Augsburg
- Content updated
Take this page with you
The myTuur app is free, and once you are standing at a spot its story starts by itself.
Spots like this one are the stops myTuur strings into tours through Augsburg. In the app, each story begins where you stand: walk up to a spot and it starts, read it on screen or listen as you go, then follow the route to the next one.
What is myTuur?
myTuur is a free city-guide app. Its tours are built from spots, and each spot carries a story that starts when you get there, to read or to listen to as you like.