Heiligblutkirche Friesach

The Heiligblutkirche stands beneath the ruins of Rotturm in Friesach, Kärnten. It is a Roman Catholic church owned by the parish of Friesach. The building occupies a quiet corner called the Sack, where the first church on this site belonged to the Cistercians of Viktring. The church is worth visiting for its long history and the Heiligblut miracle of 1238. After a fire in 1215 the Dominicans built a monastery here, and in 1608 it became a seminary under Archbishop Wolf Dietrich of Raitenau. The present structure, rebuilt after a fire in 1673, preserves medieval fabric from the 12th to the 14th centuries. Inside, the single nave is covered by a ribbed vault and contains a 1627 nun’s gallery. The high altar of 1681 holds a late-Gothic Madonna and figures of Saints Bartholomew and Catherine. On the north wall hangs the tombstone of Abbess Sophia Reifnitz. In the north chapel the Heiligblut reliquary of the early 14th century is kept, while the south wall shows folk paintings of the Heiligblut miracle.