Missionshaus St. Gabriel

The Missionshaus St. Gabriel stands in Maria Enzersdorf, a village south of Vienna in Lower Austria. Founded in 1889 by Arnold Janssen, it became the most important Austrian mission centre of the Steyler Missionaries. Up to 650 members of the order once lived and worked on the 30 000 square metre site. The complex once housed a printing shop, a bookbindery and the largest Austrian host-baking bakery, which closed in 2020. Scientific explorers trained here before travelling to South America, Central India and Central Africa. During the Second World War the Nazis seized the house and turned it into a factory kitchen that served up to 6 000 meals a day. After the war it was restored and later became a refugee hostel and a seminar centre with a hotel. The adjoining Heilig-Geist-Kirche, built between 1892 and 1900, was designed by August Theisen in a neo-Romanesque style. The church interior features a 1900 mosaic of Noah’s Ark and the four Evangelists in the choir. The apse holds a 1957 mosaic by Albert Rohner and stained-glass windows by E. Bauernfeind depicting apostles, missionaries and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Three organs have served the building: the Kaufmann organ from 1893 now stands in the crypt, the Mauracher organ is silent, and a Rieger instrument from 1982 plays in the apse. The church’s red marble columns came from the 1881 Ringtheater fire in Vienna.