Pfarrkirche St. Rupertus in Projern

The Roman Catholic parish church of St Rupert stands in Projern, a village on the edge of St Veit an der Glan in central Carinthia. Built beside a quiet cemetery, the church shelters the remains of local people under a low stone wall. Its patron saint, Rupert of Salzburg, arrived from Bavaria in the 8th century to spread Christianity across the Alps. The church began in the 11th century and appears in written records from 1388. A baroque tower was added later, capped by a steep slate spire in 1884 after restoration of the facades in 1994. Inside, the nave mixes Romanesque arches with a later Gothic choir, its walls lined with carved Roman stones reused as building material. A baroque high altar shows the saint on its central panel, flanked by statues of Sebastian, Rochus and other protectors. Visitors step from the gravel path into a single-aisled space lit by tall baroque windows. The west gallery rests on rounded columns, while the choir’s ribbed vault rises above an 18th-century communion rail. A late-medieval font and a 17th-century organ case sit beside side altars rich in gilded carvings. Outside, the graveyard holds weathered headstones and a Roman relief of a mourner, silent witnesses to centuries of village life.