Hofburg

Habsburgs

Augustinerkirche in Vienna, the Habsburg Wedding Church and the Crypt of 54 Hearts

Most visitors walk past it. The Augustinian Church is built into the Hofburg on Josefsplatz, next to the State Hall of the library, and from the outside it's a plain Gothic front squeezed between palace wings. It was the Habsburg court's parish church from 1634 to 1918, and it's where the family got married.

It's also where they kept their hearts.

The weddings

Frederick the Fair founded the church for the Augustinian friars in 1327, and they stayed until 1836. Its weddings read like a short history of Europe:

  • 12 February 1736. Maria Theresa, 18, marries Francis Stephen of Lorraine. It was a love match, which was rare, and it lasted until his death in Innsbruck in 1765.
  • 19 April 1770. Their youngest daughter, Maria Antonia, is married by proxy to the French dauphin. She leaves for France and becomes Marie Antoinette.
  • 11 March 1810. Archduchess Marie Louise is married by proxy to Napoleon, the man who had occupied Vienna twice. Archduke Charles, who had beaten him at Aspern the year before, stands in for the groom.
  • 24 April 1854. Emperor Franz Joseph marries Elisabeth of Bavaria, sixteen years old. Sisi.

The interior you see today isn't what any of them saw. Under Joseph II, from 1784, the architect Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf von Hohenberg stripped out the Baroque fittings and took the church back to a cleaner Gothic look. The one great piece added since is Antonio Canova's marble tomb for Archduchess Maria Christina, Maria Theresa's favourite daughter, finished in 1805. It's a white pyramid with mourners walking slowly into an open door, and it's the most moving thing in the building.

The heart crypt

For about two centuries many Habsburgs were buried in three places. The bodies went to the Imperial Crypt under the Capuchin church, a few minutes away. The entrails went to the catacombs of St. Stephen's Cathedral. The hearts came here.

Behind the Loreto Chapel, which Empress Eleonora Gonzaga founded in 1627, an iron door opens onto the Herzgruft, the Heart Crypt. It holds 54 urns, each with a Habsburg heart. The earliest belongs to Empress Anna, who died in 1618. The last is Archduke Franz Karl's, Franz Joseph's father, who died in 1878.

You can only see it on a guided tour. Tours run on Sundays and public holidays after the 11:00 high Mass, starting in the Loreto Chapel and announced at the end of Mass. As of October 2026 the church and Heart Crypt tour, about an hour, costs €10; the Heart Crypt alone, about half an hour, €5. Weekday tours can be requested by email from the parish.

Mass with an orchestra

The church still has music to match its history. On Sundays at 11:00 the high Mass is sung with choir and orchestra, usually a Classical setting: Haydn's "Harmoniemesse" on 25 October, Mozart's "Spatzenmesse" on 8 November. Like the Boys' Choir Mass in the Hofburg chapel round the corner, it's a service, not a concert. Arrive early for a seat, then stay for the heart tour.