Catacombs of St. Stephen's Cathedral

Vienna · Austria · Church

Thousands of plague dead were tipped into the pits beneath the cathedral — and black shadows are said to move in the oldest passages.

Visitors and guides have told of black shadows moving in the vaults beneath St Stephen's and of an oppressive presence in the oldest passages. What lies down there makes it easy to believe: plague pits into which thousands of the city's dead were tipped during the epidemics of the 17th and 18th centuries, and chambers where the bones were later stacked into walls of skulls and femurs.

Here too the Habsburgs' viscera are kept in copper urns, following the house's macabre burial tradition of dividing the imperial bodies between three churches in Vienna — the heart to the Augustinian church, the body to the Capuchin crypt, the entrails here. The combination of mass graves and imperial organs makes these crypts perhaps the eeriest rooms in Vienna.

FAQ

Where is Catacombs of St. Stephen's Cathedral located?

Catacombs of St. Stephen's Cathedral is in Wien, Austria.

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Accounts are drawn from local folklore and visitor reports.