Schafberg Church

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The church on Schafberg
The church from the north
Altar in the Schafberg Church

The Schafbergkirche (also Schafbergkapelle ) is a Roman Catholic church building in the 17th district of Hernals in Vienna . It is a branch church of the Dornbach parish church and is dedicated to St. Thomas More .

history

In the place of today's church there was a meadow with a barracks, which served as a provisional lung sanatorium and later as a children's home. During the time of the corporate state , church services were held here from 1934. Later, during the war, the barrack was used as a military hospital. After the end of the war in 1947, the building site was acquired by the parish of Dornbach and the church was expanded in stages from 1950 to 1970, largely financed by donations. The Dornbach pastor Petrus Grader ( OSB ), who was active here in the interwar period, was the driving force behind this expansion . Grader's enthusiasm for Thomas More also led to the naming of the church after the British statesman and author of Utopia, who was venerated as a martyr in Catholicism . Every year - around the day of remembrance of St. Thomas More - the lawyers' mass takes place in the church. The lawyers of Vienna are particularly invited to the celebration, which is why the church is popularly known as the Jurist Church. The Schafberg Church was inaugurated in 1970 as a branch church of the Dornbach parish; it is home to the “legal community” of Vienna. In addition to the annual organization of the fair on the Schafberg, the “Legal Fair Committee” has set itself the task of better networking the Christian-minded lawyers in Vienna.

Location and architecture

The Schafbergkirche is located at Josef-Redl-Gasse 25 in the Dornbach district . Due to its location at 342  m above sea level. A. high hill of the Schafberg it is visible from afar. The simple, neo-Romanesque building is the work of the architect Franz Graf. Construction began in 1950. The Schafbergkirche was not completed until 1970, but conceptually it is comparable to church buildings from the 1930s. It is influenced by the concepts of Clemens Holzmeister and Robert Kramreiter .

The church has a southern choir tower and a retracted apse . A sacristy and a baptistery are built in the east. The interior under a gable roof is illuminated indirectly. The apse is lined with mosaics that were created by Erich Huber and represent the Isaiah prophecy of the 7 wise and 7 foolish virgins. The door of the tabernacle on the left side altar is a stone from the crypt of Thomas More in Canterbury . Several stained glass in the Schafbergkirche are works by Lucia Jirgal , including the so-called "marriage window" in the baptistery with depictions of Saints Thomas More and John Fisher . The church bell was made by the Viennese bell foundry Josef Pfundner in 1954 and the organ by Josef Mertin is from 1961/62.

The church building is under monument protection ( list entry ). In front of it there is a stele with a Thomas More bust, which was created by Hans Stidl around 1970 , as well as a wayside shrine with an iron Madonna figure, a copy of a Madonna figure made by Tilman Riemenschneider by Franz Staffler .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.erzdioezese-wien.at/site/home/nachrichten/article/66377.html : Cardinal Schönborn is celebrating legal fair this year. In: Catholic Church Archdiocese Vienna. Archdiocese of Vienna, June 18, 2018, accessed on November 27, 2018 (German).
  2. ↑ Otmar Lowitzer: churches in Austria from 1945 to 1970. Studies on church construction in the field of tension between architectural currents, liturgical movement and church art . Dissertation, University of Vienna 2007, p. 52
  3. ^ Dehio-Handbuch Wien. X. to XIX. and XXI. to XXIII. District . Edited by Federal Monuments Office. Anton Schroll, Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-7031-0693-X , pp. 424-425

Web links

Commons : Schafbergkirche  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 48 ° 14 ′ 13.7 ″  N , 16 ° 17 ′ 56.1 ″  E