Pfarrkirche Feistritz an der Drau

The Catholic parish church of St George stands in Feistritz on the Drava in the market town of Paternion, Carinthia. A single-naved Gothic hall church, it was built at the end of the 15th century on the site of a church first recorded in 1169. The church and its walled cemetery are listed monuments, with later restorations uncovering medieval frescoes in 1999. The four-storey west tower has round-arched sound openings and a Baroque onion dome with a small lantern. Inside, the ribbed Gothic vaults bear the signature of Bartlmä Vierthaler and date from 1521. The high altar of 1782, carved by Oswald Gredischnig, shows St George slaying the dragon in the central shrine, flanked by statues of Peter and Paul. Side altars brought from Feffernitz hold figures of Mary with Child, St Joseph and St Florian. Visitors enter through a pointed west door into a nave lit by baro­que windows. The two-bay choir ends in a five-sided apse with a star vault and a painted keystone of St George. A northern chapel contains a late-Gothic ribbed vault and a Renaissance symbol of St John. The south sacristy has an iron-bound door and a Baroque aumbry. Outside, the cemetery wall encloses simple 19th-century gravestones.