Pfarrkirche hl. Oswald Gasen

The Catholic parish church of St Oswald stands on a hill above the village of Gasen in the Weiz district of Styria. The church belongs to the deanery of Birkfeld in the diocese of Graz-Seckau. Both the church and the former cemetery are listed as historic monuments. The church dates back to a 14th-century Gothic building, altered in 1688 when the nave was extended and the square choir replaced by a larger semicircular apse. Restorers in 1972 found traces of Gothic frescoes on the north wall of the old choir. The north doorway and a late-Gothic sacramental niche survive from the medieval structure. A plaque outside remembers Johann Grahsl, parish priest from 1917 until his murder by the SS in 1945. Inside, the church has a three-bay nave under a ribbed vault and a single-bay choir with a sacristy. The high altar holds a figure of St Oswald carved in the mid-18th century. Two side altars from 1714 display paintings of the Coronation of the Virgin and St Barbara. The organ, built by Ferdinand Schwarz in 1769, still plays in services. A vaulted crypt beneath the choir once served as an ossuary. Steps built in 1866 lead up to the churchyard gate.