Abstract: A catalyst body, which contains a number of passages through which a medium can flow in a preferred direction, is to be able to operate reliably with little cleaning outlay. It is also intended for cracking during the process of manufacturing the catalyst body to be particularly rare. For this purpose, each passage, disposed at right angles to the preferred direction, is approximately rectangular in cross section, as defined by a longitudinal side and a shorter transverse side. The number of passages per unit surface area lies in the range from 0.5 to 2.5 cm−2, and the longitudinal sides of a first group of the passages are disposed approximately at right angles to the longitudinal sides of a second group of the passages. The passages are in this case combined to form subgroups, the passages of each subgroup, in terms of their cross sections, forming an approximately square configuration, and each subgroup containing in each case passages from the same group.