Pfarrkirche Hardegg

The Pfarrkirche Hardegg stands on the northern slope of the Burgberg in the town of Hardegg, Lower Austria. This Roman Catholic church, dedicated to Saint Vitus, belongs to the deanery of Geras in the diocese of St Pölten and is protected as a listed monument. A steep wooden staircase, covered and sheltered, links the church to the lower-lying presbytery. The church’s history reaches back to the 12th century when the counts of Plain-Hardegg founded a parish. By 1220 it was recorded as a proprietary church of the county, later becoming Protestant in the mid-16th century. After a period of abandonment in the 17th century, it was re-endowed in 1694. The original late-Romanesque core with High Gothic extensions was transformed into a Baroque interior from 1743 onwards. The exterior shows a plain Romanesque nave from the early 13th century, a lower south aisle added early in the 14th century, and a tall choir of about 1400 with a pronounced axial kink. The tower, built in 1754, rises beside the north side of the choir. Inside, the nave has a flat ceiling, a 13th-century pointed doorway in the north wall, and a Baroque organ loft from the first half of the 18th century. The raised choir was given a three-bay vault in the mid-18th century, decorated with delicate stucco and the monograms IHS and Maria. A late-Gothic sacrament niche with wrought-iron grille dated 1605 stands in the polygonal apse.