Red instead of green
Even from the distance, the more than 50 meter high church tower in Strass im Zillertal is impressive. However, what many do not suspect is that the green church tower should actually be red. A riddle which no historian has yet solved.
To understand this riddle, it takes a leap back to Roman times. The Ziller river was already the border between two Roman provinces more than 2000 years ago. This boundary was adopted by the dioceses in the 8th century and the right side of the Ziller belonged to the diocese of Salzburg while the left belonged to Brixen (now to Innsbruck).
The diocese of Salzburg built churches with green steeples, the diocese of Brixen erected churches with red steeples. The riddle: The church in Strass im Zillertal belonged to the diocese of Brixen, so it was supposed to have a red steeple.
To solve this mystery, historians are attempting to explore the reason for this color division between the dioceses. One theory is that the diocese of Salzburg was richer and could therefore equip church towers with expensive copper clapboards. This could also be the solution to the riddle of why the church tower in Strass is green: there was copper mining in Strass and therefore Strass had more money and, above all, copper.
However, there is no agreement on this, since other dioceses from Brixen also had enough money to decorate their church towers with green copper. Furthermore, it is only a theory that the difference in color between the church towers on the left and right of the Ziller has a financial basis. There could also be another reason and in this case the presence of copper in Strass would not matter.