- CHRISTMAS IN AUSTRIA -

Innsbruck Part 3

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Merchants' houses on the north bank of the river Inn (left)

The Cathedral - formerly the town parish church of St James and raised to the status of Cathedral in 1964 - has an imposing twin-towered west front and a high dome over the choir.

Based on designs by the Baroque architect Johann Jakob Herkommer the original church was rebuilt between 1717 and 1724 on the site of an earlier Gothic church. It is roofed with domes and has a lavish baroque interior, part of which was executed by the Asam brothers.

One of the cathedral's main treasurers is a precious Madonna and Child on the main altar, painted by German master Lucas Cranach the Elder.

The interior has ceiling paintings (the Glorification of St James) and stucco work by the Asam brothers; High Baroque marble altars (1726-32), with a famous image of the Virgin ("Maria Hilf") by Lukas Cranach the Elder (c. 1530) on the high altar; and a richly carved pulpit (c. 1725).

In the north aisle can be seen an imposing monument, designed by Hubert Gerhart, to Archduke Maximilian, Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, who died in 1618.

The building was restored after suffering heavy damage in 1944 during the Second World War.

OTTO NEURURER (above and left) was born on 25 March 1882 in Piller, Austria, the twelfth and youngest child of a peasant family and was raised on a small mill farm.

Otto's father died when the boy was still young. His mother was devout, but suffered periodic bouts of depression.

Otto was a brilliant but timid young man who also battled depression. He attended seminary at Brixen.and was ordained as a priest where he served in several positions within the diocese.

At the turn of the 20th century, ideological and social tensions arose in Tirol both in political and ecclesiastical circles. Otto joined the Christian Social Movement which caused problems with his more conservative superiors.

The Nazis occupied the Tirol in 1938 at a time when Otto Neururer was parish priest in Gotzens, a village near Innsbruck. The occupation triggered a bloody persecution of the Church in Austria. Thousands of the faithful were harassed, interrogated by the Gestapo, imprisoned, thrown into concentration camps, and/or murdered.

Otto, in his capacity as spiritual advisor to his parish, advised a local girl not to marry a divorced man who was leading a dissolute life. The man was a personal friend of the Gauleiter, the highest Nazi authority in Tirol, and Otto’s intervention brought down the wrath of the Nazis.

Neururer was arrested for "slander to the detriment of German marriage" and imprisoned in Dachau and Buchenwald. He suffered the abuse that was standard in those places, and was routinely tortured. But he continued to minister to his new flock of fellow sufferers, even sharing his scant rations with prisoners weaker than himself.

In Buchenwald he was approached by a prisoner who asked to be baptised. Otto suspected a trap, but felt he could not refuse. Two days later he was transferred to the "bunker", the place of extreme punishment, where he was hanged upside down until he died on 30 May 1940. He was the first priest to be killed in a concentration camp. He was beatified on 24 November 1996 by Pope John Paul II.

The cathedral dome (above)