Parish Church of Bregenz-St. Gallus

Bregenz-St. Gallus Roman Catholic parish church is located on the church square in the Vorarlberg town of Bregenz.St. Gallus parish church is part of the Feldkirch diocese’s Bregenz deanery. The church is situated in Bregenz’s Dorf district, on a terrace that descends to the Thalbach and climbs to the Gallusstift and Gebhardsberg.

A Romanesque church stood on the site since the second half of the fifth century.When the Irish traveling monk Columbanus of Luxeuil, together with his brother Gallus and eleven other brethren, visited Bregenz in 610, he discovered a destroyed chapel and dedicated it to a purported Saint Aurelia.When the Mehrerau monastery was founded in 1079, the church was erected.During the 1973 excavation, an early Romanesque rectangular structure and a late Romanesque enlargement to a three-aisled building were unearthed.After being rebuilt to the west with a single nave the size of the former three-nave building and giving a square chancel to the east, which was united to the still surviving late Romanesque chancel, the church was dedicated in 1380.Following a fire in 1477, a new chancel with a 3/8 end was built, as was a splendid west tower consecrated in 1480.The church was renovated in 1737 according to the plans of Franz Anton Beer, with new equipment and furniture.The façade was repaired in 1939, while the inside was rebuilt between 1973 and 1974.

The massive baroque edifice has small, transept-like side chapels in the nave area, as well as a steep gabled roof with a vast, slightly drawn-in choir.A baroque chapel and a new sacristy have been built to the north of the chancel.In the west, a huge late Gothic tower with a coffin cornice and three floors sits in front of the gable facade.The tower has three raised, fluted ogival openings and a porch beneath a groined vault on the ground level.The top level of the tower has three tracery, high lancet windows.The tower’s roof was erected between 1672 and 1673 by master bricklayer Michael Kuen and stonemason Hans Jakob Gruber following the plans of architect Sebastian Greuter.A ridge turret with an onion dome on a gable roof tops the tower’s curved gable with spherical and obelisk extensions.

The flattened lunette ceiling of the three-bay nave is supported by walls with stucco capitals but no pilasters.The low, transept-like side chapels are exposed to the nave and have belt arches on pillars.A retractable, round-arched triumphal arch connects the nave and choir.Arched windows and a 3/8 closure grace the two-bay choir.The double gallery of the nave is supported by four stone columns with three-axis arches.