Georgikirche Bischofshofen

The Georgikirche stands on a raised terrace west of the town centre in Bischofshofen, a Salzburg town in the Pongau valley. Built as a private chapel for the local lords, it formed part of a fortification in the Middle Ages. The first written record appears in a 1403 indulgence letter. The church is a simple rectangle with a rounded apse and a plain roof carrying a small bell-tower. Its west door is a pointed Gothic arch closed to a round shape, above which a Roman stone head wearing a mitre is set in the wall. Inside, the flat ceiling covers a single room where medieval frescoes from about 1230 were uncovered in 1950 and restored in 2006. A bronze bell cast in 1627 still hangs in the tower. Outside, a separate war memorial designed in 1931 by Karl Reisenbichler lines the cemetery approach. The churchyard path leads past the Georgikirche’s south wall where two modern stained-glass windows by Albert Birkle depict war and peace. The interior shows prophets on the chancel arch and the apse vault filled with figures of Christ and the twelve apostles.