Pfarrkirche Heilige Walburga, Eberstein

The parish church of St Walburgen stands at the foot of the Saualpe in the village of Eberstein, Carinthia. Built as a fortified church, its defensive walls were removed around 1900. First mentioned after 1039, it became a parish in 1273. Its core is a Romanesque structure largely rebuilt in the Gothic style early in the 16th century. The west portal and parts of the nave walls belong to the earlier period, while the five-storey tower is topped by a pointed spire. A bell cast in 1559 by Wolfgang Fiering hangs in the belfry. Inside, the four-bay nave and two-bay choir are vaulted with stellar ribs, and small relief discs mark the intersections with figures such as a lion, pelican and symbols of the Evangelists. A fresco of Saint Walburga was uncovered on the south side of the chancel arch in 1992. The high altar, made about 1670, shows the standing figure of Saint Walpurga flanked by Saints Catherine and Barbara, with a crowning scene of the Coronation of the Virgin above. Two side altars from the late 17th century display a crescent Madonna and a Crucifixion flanked by Stephen, Oswald, Bartholomew and James. A late 18th-century pulpit carved with the four Latin Fathers and the Good Shepherd stands in the nave. North of the church, a Romanesque round charnel house with a single small window survives, later cut in half.