Pfarrkirche Unterwald

The Evangelical parish church in Wald am Schoberpaß stands in Unterwald, a village in the municipality of the same name in the Liezen district of Styria. It forms a protected ensemble with the old parsonage and the former school, all under Denkmalschutz. The church belongs to the Evangelical Superintendentur A.B. Steiermark and is the third-oldest Toleranzgemeinde in the region.

The parish began in 1786 as a preaching station served from Ramsau and Schladming. In 1795 it became an independent parish and the ‘mother parish’ of Styria, its territory stretching as far as the Heilandskirche in Graz until 1824. The present building, a lisenengegliederteter hall church with a five-eighths apse, was erected in 1829. A tower with a baroque dome and lantern was added in 1849 and inaugurated on 21 July 1850 with three bells.

Inside, the church holds a late-baroque communion table painted by Engelbert Bacher of Kalwang in 1855. The first organ, built by Friedrich Wagner of Graz in 1846, had eight stops. The current instrument, constructed by Ludwig Mayrhofer of Linz in 1925, has ten stops across two manuals and pedal. The nave is lit by tall windows and the tower’s lantern crowns the ridge of the roof.