Pfarrkirche Watzelsdorf

The parish church of Watzelsdorf stands on a gentle rise at the southern edge of the village in Zellerndorf, Hollabrunn district. It is a Roman Catholic church dedicated to the Exaltation of the Holy Cross and belongs to the Schottenstift in Vienna. The church is protected as a listed monument and lies within the deanery of Retz-Pulkautal in the Archdiocese of Vienna. The present building was begun in 1794 to plans by Damisch and Meinhardt and completed between 1801 and 1803. Its clear classical lines reflect the Josephinist style, with a single nave, a recessed choir at the south end and a tower at the north. The interior features rounded corners, a flat ceiling with a cornice, pilaster strips and a basket-arched triumphal arch. The organ, built in 1805 by Johann Josef Wiest, has sixteen stops and stands on a barrel-vaulted gallery. Outside, the church faces an old cemetery containing a historicist chapel of 1881. Inside, the nave ceiling is painted with the Exaltation of the Cross by Hans Alexander Brunner in 1956. The high altar’s painting of the Crucifixion is attributed to the circle of Martin Johann Schmidt. A simple classical gravestone in the cemetery commemorates Rosina Bsteh with a relief of a guardian angel dated 1817.