Filialkirche St. Radegund (Ruden)

The Filialkirche St. Radegund stands in the village of Ruden in Carinthia, a small Roman Catholic church under Denkmalschutz. First mentioned in 1213 during a dispute between St. Paul’s Abbey in the Lavanttal and the Archdeacon of Völkermarkt, it preserves medieval roots beneath its later appearance. The present baroque building dates from 1668, when Abbot Rottenhäusler commissioned the reconstruction over an older foundation. Inside, the church reveals rich baroque craftsmanship. The west tower rises with a distinctive eight-sided spire above decorative blind arcading. A bell cast in 1828 by Vinzenz Gollner hangs in the tower. The nave’s barrel vault, reinforced by ribs and lunettes, leads through a rounded triumphal arch into the single-bay choir, vaulted in a cross-rib pattern and ending in a three-eighths apse. Colourful mural scenes on the choir’s side walls were painted in 1907. The furnishings include a high altar from the early 1700s, flanked by processional doors and crowned with statues of St Radegund and St Oswald. A side altar from the mid-1700s carries a statue of St Anthony, while the pulpit from the second quarter of the 1700s is adorned with painted images of the four Evangelists. Together they form a coherent ensemble of regional baroque art and devotion.