Sankt Pölten Cathedral () dedicated to the

Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary The Assumption of Mary is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII defined it on 1 November 1950 in his apostolic constitution as follows: It leaves open the question of whether Mary died or whether she was ra ...

, is a Roman Catholic

cathedral A cathedral is a church (building), church that contains the of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, Annual conferences within Methodism, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually s ...

Sankt Pölten Sankt Pölten (; Central Bavarian: ''St. Pödn''), mostly abbreviated to the official name St. Pölten, is the capital and largest city of the States of Austria, State of Lower Austria in northeast Austria, with 55,538 inhabitants as of 1 Januar ...

Lower Austria Lower Austria ( , , abbreviated LA or NÖ) is one of the nine states of Austria, located in the northeastern corner of the country. Major cities are Amstetten, Lower Austria, Amstetten, Krems an der Donau, Wiener Neustadt and Sankt Pölten, which ...

. It has been the episcopal seat of the Diocese of Sankt Pölten in

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

Wolfgang Huber: "St. Pölten. Domkirche Mariae Himmelfahrt". Ed. Schnell & Steiner, Ratisbona, 2012. since 1785, having previously been the church of the Augustinian Abbey of St. Pölten, dissolved in 1784. The building, despite being a well-preserved late Romanesque structure, is

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

in appearance. The use of the site for religious buildings is believed to date from around 790, when a Benedictine monastery was established here, to which were brought the relics of

Saint Hippolytus In Christian belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and denomination. In Anglican, Oriental Ortho ...

, after whom the present city is named. In 828, the monastery became a possession of the

Diocese of Passau The Diocese of Passau (; ) is a Latin diocese of the Catholic Church in Germany that is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising.Great Moravia Great Moravia (; , ''Meghálī Moravía''; ; ; , ), or simply Moravia, was the first major state that was predominantly West Slavic to emerge in the area of Central Europe, possibly including territories which are today part of the Czech Repub ...

. After the invasion of the Magyars in around 907, the monastery was almost entirely destroyed, and was not rebuilt until after the

Battle of Lechfeld The Battle of Lechfeld also known as the Second Battle of Lechfeld was a series of military engagements over the course of three days from 10–12 August 955 in which the Kingdom of Germany, led by King Otto I the Great, annihilated the Hungaria ...

in 955. The first documentary reference is in a charter of 976 from

Emperor Otto II Otto II (955 – 7 December 983), called the Red (), was Holy Roman Emperor from 973 until his death in 983. A member of the Ottonian dynasty, Otto II was the youngest and sole surviving son of Otto the Great and Adelaide of Italy. Otto II was ...

to Bishop

Pilgrim of Passau Pilgrim (or Piligrim, Pilegrinus, Peregrinus; died 20 May 991) was Bishop of Passau. Pilgrim was ambitious, but also concerned with the Christianization of Hungary. Life He was educated at the Benedictine Niederaltaich Abbey, and was made bisho ...

. Under Bishop

Altmann of Passau Altmann von Passau Passau.html" ;"title="Coat of arms of Passau">Coat of arms of Passau Altmann ( – 8 August 1091) was the Bishop of Passau from 1065 until his death. He was an important representative of the Gregorian reforms, monastic foun ...

the abbey became an Augustinian canonry, which was dissolved in 1784 as part of the

Josephine Reforms Josephinism is a name given collectively to the domestic policies of Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor (1765–1790). During the ten years in which Joseph was the sole ruler of the Habsburg monarchy (1780–1790), he attempted to legislate a series o ...

. In around 1150, the abbey church was rebuilt with three naves but no

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform ("cross-shaped") cruciform plan, churches, in particular within the Romanesque architecture, Romanesque a ...

, with a

westwork A westwork (), forepart, avant-corps or avancorpo is the monumental, west-facing entrance section ("west front") of a Carolingian, Ottonian, or Romanesque church. The exterior consists of multiple stories between two towers. The interior inc ...

including two towers. In 1228 Bishop Gebhard changed the dedication, formerly to Saints Peter, Stephen and Hippolytus, to the Assumption of Mary. After a fire it was rebuilt again between 1267 and 1280. After another fire in 1621 the entire building was re-cast in the present Baroque style.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sankt Polten Cathedral Roman Catholic cathedrals in Austria Buildings and structures in Sankt Pölten Roman Catholic churches completed in 1785 18th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Austria Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor