Karmelitenkloster Maria Schnee

The Karmelitenkloster Maria Schnee stands in Graz’s third district, Geidorf, beside the Reinerkogel hill. Its hakenförmiger three-storey building faces the Grabenstraße, set back from the road. The monastery’s inner courtyard holds the church that serves both monks and pilgrims. The site began as a 1553 forest chapel and became a late-baroque residence in 1687. After Joseph II closed the earlier convent in 1789, the Karmelites returned in the 1840s and enlarged the complex under Georg Hauberrisser the Elder. During the Second World War the buildings housed the Hitlerjugend’s music school. Visitors enter through an 1859 portal adorned with reliefs of Saint Leopold and a view of the monastery. Inside the north wing, neogothic prayer rooms display 1876 paintings from Vienna and a 17th-century ivory corpus on the main cross. The church in the courtyard shows a 16th-century Mariahilf image above its high altar, flanked by figures of Saints Anna and Joachim.