Kath. Pfarrkirche Sooß

The late-medieval parish church of Saint Anne stands alone in the fields north of Sooß, a small market town in the district of Baden. Built as a fortified church in the 15th century, it still keeps its walled cemetery and the remains of a defensive ditch along three sides. The building belongs to the Diocese of Vienna and forms part of the Baden deanery. The church’s late-Gothic choir tower rises above the cemetery wall, its 15th-century belfry showing original stone frames and steeply sloping roofs. Inside, the single nave is roofed by a flat-barrel vault and holds a Baroque high altar of twisted columns made in the early 1700s. The altarpiece shows Saint Anne with the Christ Child and John the Baptist, while the flanking statues represent Faith and Hope in gilded rococo form. A late-18th-century organ with seven stops stands on the gallery above the entrance. Visitors walk past the partly preserved moat before entering the walled yard. The tower’s ground floor serves as a sacristy and oratory, lit by narrow slits in the thick walls. Inside, the high altar’s gilded reliefs depict Saint John of Nepomuk and the Risen Christ, each beneath richly draped canopies. Along the north wall a glass shrine houses 18th-century figures of the Holy Family, while the Stations of the Cross are carved in stone from the last century. The churchyard itself contains the so-called cholera cemetery, adding another layer of history to the site.