Pfarrkirche Kautzen

The parish church of Kautzen stands on rising ground at the northern edge of the main square in the small town of Kautzen, in the Waidhofen an der Thaya district of Lower Austria. It is dedicated to Saint James the Elder and belongs to the Waidhofen deanery in the Diocese of St Pölten. The building has been listed as a protected monument since the 20th century. The church first appears in records in 1341, when it was already a parish. After a fire in 1805, the interior was rebuilt and the altars consecrated in 1870. The nave was widened in 1868–70 to create a three-aisled hall church. The exterior shows the later additions in the form of projecting side aisles with gabled fronts, round-arched windows and a Romanesque-style frieze beneath the low west tower capped by an onion dome. Inside, the broad hall has historicist detailing with later ribbed vaults on octagonal piers. The high altar, dating from 1869–70, is in neo-Baroque style with a painted altarpiece of Saint James by Franz Mayerhofer from 1825. Statues of Saints Peter and Paul flank the painting, and the gable group depicts the Trinity. Side niches contain statues of Our Lady of Lourdes and the Sacred Heart by Josef Obletter from 1904, while other figures by Franz Schmalzl include Saints Leonhard, Wendelin, Joachim, Anna, John of Nepomuk and Florian. The organ was built by Franz Capek in 1906, and a bell cast by Johann Christoph Flos in 1682 still hangs in the tower.