Kirche Fischering

The small Baroque parish church of St Martin stands in the village of Fischering, a few kilometres from St Andrä in the Lavant valley. It belongs to the Gurk-Klagenfurt diocese and its graveyard is protected as a listed monument. The church was first recorded in 1619, while the cemetery chapel with its 19th-century portico dates from the late 1800s. Inside, the two-bay nave has a ribbed vault and a wooden gallery, while the single-bay choir ends in an eight-sided apse. The west tower rises with arched openings at ground level and narrow slits above, capped by a pointed spire. Embedded in the south wall is a re-used Roman altar decorated with a mermaid and acanthus scrolls. The high altar, made about 1680, shows St Martin on its main panel and the Virgin on the upper painting. The left side altar, from the mid-1600s, carries figures of St Augustine and a bishop flanking St Florian, with St George above. The right altar, from the late 1700s, bears images of St Rupert and St Bartholomew, topped by St Mark. The pulpit, dating from around 1700, was later enriched with carved decoration.