Heiliger Berg Karmel, Bärnbach

The Holy Mountain rises 539 metres above the valley where the Gradnerbach and Kainach rivers meet in the town of Bärnbach. On its broad summit stands the Carmel of the Holy Cross, home to Discalced Carmelite nuns since 1976. Below the plateau the 17th-century church of Saints Joachim and Anne and its detached Holy Sepulchre chapel share the slope with a 1730s Calvary. The site’s sacred history reaches back to prehistoric times, when it was already called the ‘sacred mountain’. In 1660 the Countess Elionora Eusebia von Wagensperg founded the church and chapel; the Count of Wagensperg dedicated the church to the Virgin in 1666. Between 1730 and 1740 a series of Passion chapels encircled the summit, and in 1975 the present monastery was built to the designs of Fridrun Hussa. Archaeologists found Urnfield pottery and loom weights while laying its foundations. A broad avenue of lime trees leads from Bärnbach to the monastery gate. Inside the church the square nave is vaulted in eight-part ribbing, and the 1770 high altar carries a painting of the Presentation of the Virgin by Franz Wolfart. The adjacent Holy Sepulchre chapel, built in 1776, holds faded frescoes. Around the summit the four Calvary chapels contain painted Passion scenes from about 1780 and statues by Philipp Jakob Straub. At the very top a stone group of the Virgin, Saint John and Mary Magdalene, attributed to Johann Jakob Schoy, overlooks the valley.