Maria vom Berge Karmel

The former Catholic parish church of Maria vom Berge Karmel now serves as the Syriac Orthodox church of St Ephrem. It stands on Stefan-Fadinger-Platz in Favoriten, Vienna’s 10th district, where the Karmelite order built a wooden chapel in 1916. That first structure burned down in 1928, leaving only the adjoining monastery intact. Architect Hans Prutscher then designed a double church with an upper and lower level, completed in stages between 1929 and 1942. The lower church opened in 1929, the upper church was consecrated by Cardinal Innitzer in 1942, and the tower was added later. During the Second World War the lower church served as an air-raid shelter, and in 1945 a bomb strike killed 140 people sheltering inside. The church’s history reflects the changing fortunes of the Karmelites in Vienna. After the order arrived from North America in 1886, they established a presence in Döbling before securing the site on Stefan-Fadinger-Platz. Father Telephorus Hardt led the community as prior and became the first parish priest when the church became a parish in 1937. In 2003 the Karmelites left Vienna, handing pastoral care to the Archdiocese of Vienna. The Filipino community then used the building until 2014, when the Syriac Orthodox Church purchased it and moved their parish of St Ephrem from Lainz. Inside, the lower church was restored after the war and rededicated in 1951. Work on the upper church and tower began in 1957 under architect Helene Koller-Buchwieser and finished the following year. The tower was completed in 1965 with a new set of bells, and the organ was installed in 1964. The sanctuary was remodelled twice, in 1966 and 1996, to meet liturgical needs. The building’s twin levels, rebuilt after wartime damage, now serve a new congregation while preserving the memory of earlier communities.