Pfarrkirche hl. Nikolaus, Gresten

The Catholic parish church of St Nicholas stands in the lower market square of Gresten, a small town in the hills of western Lower Austria. Built under the rule of the Zinzendorf family in the late 16th century, it replaced an earlier Romanesque church and was later remodelled in the Gothic style. The building has been protected as a historic monument since the 1970s.

Inside, the church surprises with its wide nave and side aisles under a single roof, lit by oval dormers added around 1800. The late-Gothic vaults rest on octagonal pillars, and the west gallery, also late-Gothic, was later given a neo-Gothic front. The high altar area was redesigned in 1966 with a free-standing tabernacle by Viktor Hammer and a suspended Christ the King crucifix.

Outside, the massive west tower carries a dated bell from 1489 and shows the marks of successive restorations. On the south side of the choir stands a neo-Gothic war memorial with a relief scene, while inside the choir the tomb of Johannes Friedrich von Zinzendorf is richly decorated with polychrome figures and ancestral shields. The churchyard wall and the former charnel house complete the historic ensemble.