Pfarrkirche Untersiebenbrunn

The Catholic parish church of St Vitus stands on a raised terrace in the northern part of Untersiebenbrunn, a village in the Gänserndorf district of Lower Austria. The church belongs to the deanery of Gänserndorf within the vicariate of Unter dem Manhartsberg in the Archdiocese of Vienna. Both the church and its adjoining cemetery are protected monuments. The parish was founded in 1784 and placed under the authority of Melk Abbey. After the medieval fortified church was demolished in 1709, a new Baroque church was built the following year to plans by master builder Johann Koch. In 1744 and 1755 the west tower façade and a vault were added. Excavations in the 1980s uncovered the foundations of the Romanesque nave, and fragments of the old defensive walls remain. The church’s exterior shows a unified Baroque design over a Romanesque core. The three-storey west tower has a central projection, a plain lisenen arrangement, and a small square window above the rectangular portal. The tower is capped by a bulbous dome and large decorative louvres for its bells. Inside, the four-bay nave has flat-pilastered walls and barrel vaulting on double ribs. The high altar of 1748, altered in 1784, carries figures of Saints Florian and Hippolyt and a painted image of St Vitus. The organ, built by Franz Josef Swoboda in 1908, has six speaking stops.