Kirche in Mitteldorf

Maria Dornach is a late-Gothic pilgrimage church standing at 1,166 metres above sea level in the village of Mitteldorf, part of the municipality of Großkirchheim in Carinthia. First mentioned in 1365 as ‘Beata Maria an der Schütt’, the building was rebuilt after a landslide and consecrated in 1491 by Bishop Konrad of Belluno. A fire in 1551 damaged the structure, and later additions include a Baroque Loreto chapel added in 1728. The church’s five-storey tower rises with spire-topped sound openings and is decorated with simple stone ornament. Inside, a three-bay nave is covered by a net-ribbed vault resting on sturdy wall shafts, their keystones painted with half-length saints. A two-storey wooden organ loft carries painted scenes of Mary’s life from the early 19th century. The 1740 organ itself and the adjoining Loreto chapel with its Pilaster doors remain intact. Visitors find late-Gothic features such as a pointed west portal and a profiled south door, while the choir holds a sacrament niche with a crocketed arch. Walls display 18th-century frescoes of Hell and God the Father, and early 20th-century Nazarene murals of saints and angels. The high altar, donated in 1754, shelters a clothed Madonna under a canopy, flanked by statues of regional saints. Side altars bear carved figures and painted panels, and the nave walls carry a row of painted and sculpted saints.