Pfarrkirche Maria im Dorn

The Roman Catholic parish church in Feldkirchen is called Maria im Dorn. It stands at the end of Kirchgasse, raised above the Tiebel river. The church began as an Eigenkirche of the Eppensteiner around 1065, with the present building started after 1166. It became a parish in 1258 and was fortified after the 1476 Turkish raid, though still captured by Hungarians in 1480. The church is a three-aisled Romanesque pillar basilica with a square choir tower, later altered in the Gothic period. In 1986, Gernot Kulterer added a western hall extension, aligning it with the older structure and turning the church’s orientation westwards. The church’s five-storey choir tower, originally Romanesque, was heightened to 40 metres in 1783 and crowned with a Baroque onion dome. Its 1871 façade features a new base and corner pilasters, while a bell cast by Mathias Gollner in 1830 hangs inside. The Gothic main choir from the 14th century is supported by buttresses and shows pointed openings beneath the roof. A rectangular sacristy with 19th-century coupled round-arched windows and a double staircase stands south of the main choir. The Baroque south porch has a wavy gable and a pointed arch portal framed by reused 13th-century Romanesque columns. Inside, the nave retains its late Romanesque proportions, with Romanesque arches opening to the side aisles and Gothic ribbed vaults from the late 15th century. A wooden organ loft by Martin Pflüger was added in 1991. The former square choir tower now holds a hanging dome and opens to three smaller chapels. The high altar from 1738 features a Madonna flanked by Saints Peter and Paul, with weather saints in armour at the sides. A Gothic wing altar from Tschahitsch, stolen in 1988, survives only in its predella, showing Christ rising from the tomb and the Veil of Veronica. The western hall extension ends in an apse with narrow slit windows designed by Giselbert Hoke in 2009.