Filialkirche Hl. Johannes der Täufer, Mürzhofen

The Roman Catholic branch church of St John the Baptist in Mürzhofen stands in the Mürztal valley of Styria. It is a small medieval building protected as a listed monument. The village around it is quiet, with farmland and wooded hills rising behind. The church first appears in records in 1232 and once had its own parish from 1756 to 1826. A major restoration took place in 1975, uncovering and preserving its oldest parts. The building shows layers of Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque styles side by side. Each period left clear traces that experts still study today. Inside, the Romanesque nave carries a late Gothic net-ribbed vault added around 1500. The Gothic choir, slightly raised and angled, has a painted frieze under its eaves. The high altar is Rococo, with a 1775 painting of the Baptism of Christ by Joseph Adam Ritter von Mölk. The organ dates from 1848, and the church holds a 16th-century wooden Madonna and a 17th-century stone epitaph to Joseph Butrum.