Holy Spirit Church

The parish church of Maria Enzersdorf-Südstadt stands in the Südstadt district of Maria Enzersdorf, a town in the Mödling district of Lower Austria. It is a Roman Catholic church dedicated to the Holy Spirit and belongs to the Mödling deanery within the vicariate of Unter dem Wienerwald in the Archdiocese of Vienna. The building is protected as a monument. It should not be confused with the older Holy Spirit Church of the Mission House St Gabriel, located one kilometre further west. The church was built between 1969 and 1970 to designs by architects Hannes Lintl and Gerhard Düh. A parish expositur had been established in 1966, and the church became the parish church in 1993. Since 2014 it has served the entire parish of Maria Enzersdorf following the merger of the former parishes. The church is a plain, cubic reinforced-concrete skeleton structure with single-storey extensions and a low free-standing bell tower. The central worship space is lit by a continuous band of windows running around the top. The architect drew inspiration from a Celtic walled temple. Inside, the church has a tall, rectangular central space. The walls are finished in exposed concrete and Leca concrete panels, with narrow window bands set high up. Among the furnishings are batiks by Brigitte Hatz from 1971. The former organ, built in 1908 by the Slovak organ builder Vincent Možný for the composer Franz Schmidt, was removed in 2016 and is now stored by the Institute for Organ, Organ Research and Church Music at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. The parish now uses a digital organ made by the Dutch firm Content.