Saint Peter Church

The parish church of St Peter-Freienstein stands in the small market town of Sankt Peter-Freienstein in the Leoben district of Styria. Built for the local lord before 1122, it was first recorded in 1265 as a cell dedicated to Saint Peter. The present late-Gothic church shows the date 1497 on a buttress, while a major restoration in 1967 renewed both exterior and interior. The building’s architecture is marked by stepped buttresses and pointed Gothic doorways on the west and south sides. A west tower with two side entrances rises above the nave, its upper stage and spire rebuilt in the 19th century. Inside, the four-bay nave is covered by a stellar rib-vault on round shafts, and a three-bay west gallery projects forward beneath a cross-ribbed ceiling. The two-bay choir ends in a five-sided apse with net-ribbed vaulting, and contains a late-Gothic sacrament niche with wrought-iron grille. Fresco fragments appear on the north wall of the nave, uncovered in 1950 and dating from the early 15th century. Above the sacristy door is a late-16th-century Last Judgement, while the high altar from the 1730s–40s holds a painting by Franz Trietscher showing Christ giving the keys to Peter. Side altars in the Rococo style, a mid-18th-century pulpit with a figure of Saint Paul, and a late-Gothic statue of Saint Peter from around 1510–20 all contribute to the church’s rich furnishings.