Pfarrkirche Pierbach

The Catholic parish church of Saint Quirinus stands on rising ground at the western edge of Pierbach village in Upper Austria’s Freistadt district. It belongs to the deanery of Unterweißenbach in the diocese of Linz and is protected as a listed monument. The churchyard wall encloses the site on its eastern and western sides. The building’s story begins in 1150, when a church was first recorded, and it became a parish in 1372. Romanesque walls from the 12th century survive in today’s nave, while the tower dates from the late 15th century and the choir from around 1500. Side aisles and a west gallery were added about 1600, raising the nave and giving it a new vault in the mid-17th century. A sacristy was built in the 18th century and the roof structure renewed in 2000. Inside, the three-aisled church has a higher nave with baroque vaulting and late-gothic side aisles featuring different star-ribbed ceilings. The choir is a single bay with a five-sided end and ribbed vault, while the tower sits in the southern choir angle and the sacristy in the northern. A painted Crucifixion scene in the north aisle shows a donor family from the early 1500s. The high altar is a carved Crucifixion group from the circle of Meinrad Guggenbichler, set above a baroque tabernacle by Klothilde Rauch.