St. Stephan, Mainz

The provost of the Collegiate Church administered one of the archdiaconates (a medieval organizational form similar to today's diaconates) of the Archbishopric of Mainz.

In 1857 a great explosion in a nearby powder magazine (Mainz was a federal fortress in the 19th century) destroyed the baroque facing of the church.

The cloister was heavily damaged and was rebuilt between 1968 and 1971; the restoration of the huge western belfry was also completed at that time, albeit with some difficulty.

Between 1978 and his death in 1985, Belarusian Jewish artist Marc Chagall created nine stained-glass windows of scriptural figures in luminous blue.

Despite the immense damage caused by both World War II and the powder explosion to St. Stephan, the 13th-century altar mensa (or table) and the huge Tabernacle dating from about 1500 have both survived.