Interesting Liturgical Sights on a Recent Trip to Europe (1): Vienna and Environs

In May, my daughter and I visited a few places in Austria and Italy, and while I wasn’t much of a shutterbug (I’m trying these days to leave my camera mostly unused), I’ll admit that I pulled it out whenever I saw something that I thought NLM readers might enjoy seeing. As usual, click on the images to enlarge.

The ceiling of the sacristy at Heiligenkreuz Abbey. Note how the tormentors of the three children in the fiery furnace are sporting turbans, a reminder that the Turks once ransacked this abbey.

For a place that’s supposed to help priests become recollected for Mass, the interplay between this priest and his server is rather funny!

The Pummerin of Stephansdom in Vienna, the third largest bell in Europe at 44,380 lbs or the weight of 15-20 cars; its metal is from 208 Turkish cannons melted down after the Siege of Vienna.

Our guide took us up to the perimeter of the Stephansdom roof to give us a close look at the tiles.

Here’s the huge room under the Stephansdom roof, above the vaulted nave of the church - it's almost the size of a church in itself.

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An Unusual Viennese Liturgical Use, with a Close-Up View of the Baroque Dome of the Karlskirche

The "liturgical study day" in which I took part on Sunday, April 2 in Vienna, was prefaced with a visit to the dome of the Karlskirche and concluded with a glorious Solemn Mass for Passion Sunday, in the Viennese style: the so-called "Fünfherrenamt" (literally, "five lord worship"), which calls for five vested ministers to serve the altar, rather than the usual three. There was a surprising amount of changing of vestments, which I didn't understand, but hope someday to receive an explanation of!

My hosts told me that this use or custom is uniquely Viennese and that it has unexpectedly survived to the present, in spite of so many pressures, old and new, to abandon it. Before the Council, there were ultramontanists arguing that Vienna should conform to the Roman Rite as celebrated everywhere else; whereas after the Council, the notion of any sort of Tridentine Mass, with one, three, five, or ninety-five ministers, was verboten. Yet the Fünfherrenamt continues to be celebrated several times each year. I cannot comment in detail on the ceremonies but I can at least share some of the splendid pictures taken by Una Voce Austria, as well as a brief video of highlights.

Beneath these photos, I will place and comment on several close-ups that I took of the dome frescos of the same church, dedicated to St. Charles Borromeo.

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