Parish church Maria Elend

Maria Elend stands in the Rosental valley of southern Kärnten, beside the Gail river. It is a Roman Catholic pilgrimage church dedicated to the Virgin Mary’s flight into Egypt. The present building mixes Gothic structure with Baroque decoration, its three aisles vaulted in the 1680s under Abbot Edmund Ibelbacher of Ossiach. A massive Romanesque tower, its lower storey dating from the 13th century, rises beside the nave. The church remembers two Turkish raids in 1478 and 1483, after which the Venetian bishop Pietro Carlo rededicated it in 1486. The church holds artistic treasures that reward a visit. The high altar is a 1731 work by Johann Marcell Singer of Klagenfurt, a gift from Vienna marking the lifting of the Second Turkish Siege in 1683. Its marble-like woodwork shows Turkish heads and crescents recalling the victory. A late-Gothic winged altar from about 1515, probably by artists of the Villach school under Lukas Tausmann, stands in the south aisle. When closed during Lent its panels display the Passion and the Fourteen Holy Helpers, figures widely invoked in times of plague and war. Inside, five further altars and a Baroque pulpit enrich the space. The Skapulier-Altar of 1732 was donated by Georg Nikolaus Orsini-Rosenberg and shows the Virgin handing the scapular to Simon Stock. The Antonius-Altar, dating from about 1650, depicts the saint before the Christ Child. A 1733 Johannes Nepomuk altar shows adoration of the crucified Christ. The Joseph altar on the north wall portrays the foster father leading the child. The pulpit of 1745, carved with figures of the Good Shepherd and apostles, carries the Rosenberg arms. Plain fresco medallions by Josef Ferdinand Fromiller complete the sanctuary.