St. Peter's Church, Baroque parish church in Innere Stadt, Austria
St. Peter's Church is a Baroque Roman Catholic church on Petersplatz in the Innere Stadt, its cream and pale-yellow facade framed by white pilasters and niches holding statues. A ribbed green copper dome with a lantern and cross rises between two matching copper-capped towers, with a white clock face below the dome. The compact oval interior, the first domed structure of Baroque Vienna, reaches a dome height of 56 m.
A church of Saint Peter in Vienna is first documented in 1137; the medieval building burned down in 1661. Emperor Leopold I, a member of the Holy Trinity Fraternity, vowed to rebuild it during the plague of 1679. Construction of the new Baroque church began in 1702 under Gabriele Montani, continued from 1703 under Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt, and was consecrated on 17 May 1733.
The church is dedicated to the Holy Trinity, not only to St. Peter, and was consecrated under that title in 1733. Since 1970 the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal König, entrusted its pastoral care to priests of Opus Dei. The high altarpiece by Martino Altomonte shows the Healing of the Lame by St. Peter and St. John.
The church is largely hidden by surrounding buildings and can only be seen clearly from directly in front on Petersplatz. Jungferngasse cuts through the pedestrian zone and leads straight to the facade. The entrance is reached via a marble portal porch added in 1751–1753.
The interior displays glass coffins containing remains of Roman catacomb martyrs, an unusual exhibition within a European church. These reliquaries were deliberately chosen to honor early Christian history.
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