Pfarrkirche Sankt Paul

Pfarrkirche Sankt Paul stands on a staircase beside the Paulusbogen, Passau’s northern gate to the old town. Cream walls, pink architectural details, and a single three-storey tower shape the Baroque exterior, whose five-part facade carries Corinthian and Tuscan pilasters. The oldest parish church in Passau began here around 1050, while the present structure followed fires in 1512 and 1662.

Carlo Antonio Carlone rebuilt the church in 1678, creating a wall-pillar gallery hall with four nave sections, two choir sections, and no transept. Inside, black and gold altars contrast with pale walls, while restrained stucco from 1909 frames the vaulted space. The high altar from around 1700 fills the choir wall with four Corinthian columns and Franz Werner Tamm’s painting of Saint Paul’s beheading.

Look beneath the organ gallery for Johann Michael Rottmayr’s 1689 Lamentation of Christ. Above the high altar, a replica of the Maria Pötsch icon from Vienna’s Saint Stephen’s Cathedral shares the composition with a Salvator Mundi statue. The Paulus bell preserves another chapter: cast in 1777, removed for wartime purposes in 1942, and recast and enlarged in 1950.