St. Jodok

The parish church of St Jodok stands on a raised site in the upper Kleinwalsertal, left of the Breitach stream, with a walled cemetery on its south-west side. A tall tower rises at the east end, its spire rising above the single-pitched roof that covers nave and choir together. The walls are marked by rows of round-headed windows, five on each side of the nave, five on the choir. The main entrance on the north gable is a neo-Romanesque round-arched portal, while the south side has a simpler round-arched door to the burial ground. The church’s history appears in carved stones: 1302 and 1303 on the choir walls, 1371 and 1374 on the tower. In 1391 it became a parish church after being a chapel of Fischen in Bavaria. The present building dates largely from 1463, with a Baroque remodelling of the nave and sacristy in 1693–94. Inside, a two-bay choir has ribbed vaulting on wall pilasters, their capitals adorned with cherub heads. The nave ceiling is flat, with a painted cycle of Christ’s life added in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Frescoes cover the walls and ceiling, including a 16th-century Crucifixion group and a late 16th-century Sacrament niche flanked by kneeling angels. The high altar of 1706 carries a mid-18th-century statue of the Virgin and Child, while side altars hold a Pietà and a Heart-of-Jesus figure. The organ, rebuilt in 1886 by Anton Behmann, has 17 speaking stops after later enlargement. A neo-Romanesque pulpit shows the four Evangelists, and the font bears reliefs of the Evangelist symbols and the local patron, St Jodok.