Parish Church of St. Walburgen
The Roman Catholic parish church of St. Walburgen is dedicated to St. Walburga . It lies at the foot of the Saualpe in the municipality of Eberstein and is a former fortified church . Its fortification walls were torn down around 1900. It was first mentioned after 1039 and named as a parish in 1273.
Building description
The church is a Romanesque building that was largely renovated in the Gothic style at the beginning of the 16th century . The western columned portal , perhaps also the nave walls and the south tower, which only reaches into the attic, date from the Romanesque period. The massive, five-storey tower is crowned by a pointed gable helmet. A bell was cast by Wolfgang Fiering in 1559. The church consists of a four-bay nave and a raised, two-bay choir with a five-eighth end . The architectural décor from 1534 with corner blocks, multi-colored friezes as well as colored cornices and window frames was restored during the restoration in 1995. The roofs of the church are covered with stone slabs. A barbed round arched portal from the Romanesque period leads into the star-vaulted vestibule on the tower ground floor.
Inside, in the nave, a ribbed vault rises above service bundles without capital , and in the choir above console services. Small relief disks with various representations such as lion, pelican, resurrected and evangelist symbols are attached to the intersection of the ribs. In the choir, the capitals and consoles also have sculptural, sometimes figural, decoration. A small fresco of St. Walburga was uncovered on the right side of the triumphal arch in 1992.
The windows have simple tracery . The organ gallery with an openwork tracery parapet and a three-part arched position adorned with a crab-covered keel arch is arched under star ribs.
The north-facing, single-bay chapel extension with four-sixths and a ridge vault probably dates from the 14th century and is now used as a sacristy . The former sacristy is in the southern corner of the choir. A baroque baptistery is also housed in the basement of the former south tower.
Facility
The baroque high altar , created around 1670, consists of an aedicula above a high base with side console figures, a curved, blown gable and a small aedicula with a console pilaster and blown segment gable as an attachment, as well as side sacrificial portals . The central figure of St. Walpurga is flanked by the statues of St. Catherine and Barbara . In addition to the central coronation group, the essay contains the figures of the plague saints Sebastian and Rochus .
The two side altars were built at the end of the 17th century. The left shows a crescent Madonna , the right a crucifixion as well as the Saints Stephen , Oswald , Bartholomäus and Jakobus major .
The pulpit , made after 1780, probably came from the workshop of Johann Georg Hittinger. The figures of the four Latin Fathers of the Church are depicted on the pulpit, with Christ and the Samaritan woman on the parapets. The relief on the back wall of the pulpit depicts the Good Shepherd .
The church also features the console statues of Saints Joseph and Johannes Nepomuk from the first half of the 18th century, a baroque crucifix on the triumphal arch, late baroque candlesticks, as well as a baptismal font and a holy water font from the late Gothic period.
In the church there is a priest grave slab from 1462, the priest grave slab of Benedikt Niederhofer († 1516) and the Protestant priest grave slab of Simon Strisiz († 1562).
Others
The Romanesque round barn with a small Romanesque window is north of the church. It was later halved.
literature
- Dehio manual. The art monuments of Austria. Carinthia . Anton Schroll, Vienna 2001, ISBN 3-7031-0712-X , p. 858 f.
Coordinates: 46 ° 46 ′ 10.5 ″ N , 14 ° 32 ′ 57.3 ″ E