Saint Acacius Church (Schladming)

The parish church of St Achaz stands beside the old Salzburg Gate on the edge of Schladming’s medieval town centre. It was raised in the 12th or 13th century as a daughter church of Haus im Ennstal and first dedicated in 1299. Saxon miners brought the Reformation here in 1522, holding evangelical services until the Counter-Reformation ended them around 1600. The building passed from Haus’s control in 1857 when it became an independent parish, and its cemetery holds the former charnel house now called the Anna Chapel. The present late-Gothic hall church was built between 1522 and 1532 by the Admont lodge using older fabric. After fires in 1741 and 1814 destroyed the spire and roof, the onion dome and later temporary roofs were replaced in stages up to 1937. The five-sided polygonal choir ambulatory is unusual, drawing on models at Maria Pöllauberg, St Lambrecht and Rottenmann. Inside, rib-vaulting carries a painted eight-petal star pattern, and the west tower rises above five bays of nave. Inside, the 1571 red-marble octagonal font and the Katzpeck epitaphs recall the brief evangelical period. The high altar of 1702–04 by Peter Hafner shows St Achaz, flanked by statues from Martin Neuberg. A miners’ guild gave the northern Coronation of the Virgin altar, while the southern altar is dedicated to the rosary. The organ, rebuilt in 1862 and restored in 2020–21, has eight stops. The tower now carries five steel bells from 1918–47, one of them salvaged from a dissolved Bruck monastery.