St. Peter's Parish Church

The parish church of St. Peter’s is perched on the quiet slope above Merano/Meran near the village of Tirolo/Dorf Tirol. In the church, the nave and aisles are arranged in the shape of a Latin cross. The edifice is one of the few Christian places of worship dating back to the Carolingian era in early medieval Europe. In this region, this is a highly unusual structure, making it one of the oldest sanctuaries built in stone anywhere in Central Europe.
During recent excavations, the foundations of a pre-Romanesque church was discovered on the site, which predated the existing church by some 400 years.

Relics of an ancient stucco sculpture had been preserved, and can still be seen in the St. Peter's Church of today. With its northern aisle originally designed as a burial chapel, the ancient parish church of St. Peter was built in Lombard Carolingian style. However, in 1290, the church underwent large-scale modifications under the orders of Count Meinhard II of Gorizia-Tyrol, who had taken over its patronage only three years earlier. In the end, he transferred the little church named after St. Peter to the Cistercian monastery of Stams in the Upper Inntal Valley. Despite its tumultuous upheavals over the ages, the church has remained the property of the monastery to this day.