Kirche

The Roman Catholic parish church of Kleinriedenthal stands on rising ground at the western edge of the village in the town of Retz, Hollabrunn district, Lower Austria. It belongs to the deanery of Retz-Pulkautal in the Archdiocese of Vienna and is dedicated to Saint Giles. The modest medieval structure was heavily altered in the Baroque period and now sits beside the local cemetery. Its exterior shows a plain nave and a narrower choir ending in a straight wall, with a sacristy attached to the south side. Round-arched windows are framed by simple mouldings, and the roof carries a small western bell-tower added in the 20th century. Inside, the single nave is covered by a Baroque barrel vault with cross-ribs supported on shallow wall pillars from the mid-18th century. The choir, also vaulted, was extended eastwards at the same period by one bay under a groin vault. The late-18th-century high altar holds a painting of the Virgin and Child flanked by wooden statues of male monastic saints from the 19th century. A side altar of the same date carries two Baroque wooden figures of Saints James and Sebastian. A seven-stop organ built around 1840 stands on the west gallery. The church’s restrained medieval core and its later fittings together create a quiet place of worship.