Culture & Religion

Filial Church of St. Catherine on the Kogel

To the west of the parish church is a 70 m high pyramid-shaped hill and on it stands the church of St. Catherine. From here there is a beautiful view over the whole Jaun valley, which also attracted people to settle here in ancient times. On this hill there are still traces of ancient graves from which one can conclude that there was already a settlement with a fortification here 400 years before the birth of Christ. In the documents, this daughter church is only mentioned in 1530, but the "St. Catreinberg" is mentioned on 12.5.1440. In 1654, Jakob Rohrmeister, the city priest of St. Ägid in Klagenfurt, who was famous for his many church endowments, also endowed this St. Katharina church with a mass endowment of Fl 1007 with the stipulation that a mass be said there every Wednesday. In 1796, however, lightning struck the church and it was completely destroyed by fire. It was not until half a century later that it was rebuilt, which took a full seven years. In 1858 the prince-bishop Anton Martin Slomšek consecrated the church. The building is a mixture of Gothic and Baroque. The altars are also from the year of construction. On the main altar are the statues of St. Catherine, St. Barbara and St. Apollonia, above them the Virgin Mary. The altarpiece of the side altar on the north side is dedicated to St. Rosalia, the patron saint of the plague. In 1855, the year of the colera, the people vowed to erect it and in 1860 the vow was fulfilled. Next to St. Rosalia are the statues of Mary and St. Mary Magdalene with the skull and above them the statue of the Sacred Heart. On the altar of the cross is the Crucified, next to him Mary and John. On the third side altar is the statue of Mary in the centre, next to her St. Dominic and St. Mary Magdalene Pacis with the heart in her hand. In front of the main altar hangs a beautiful and large Gothic eternal light lamp.

Filial Church of St. Nicholas in Hof

It stands in the village of Hof on a small elevation and consists of the narthex, the nave with a flat, whitewashed wooden ceiling, and the Gothic presbytery, which ends with three sides of the octagon and supports a net vault whose ribs rest on consoles. The triumphal arch is moulded and has a coat of arms on the pediment.

Attached to the presbytery is the square tower with a pointed roof. The presbytery has a plinth wall, but the nave does not, which is why they must date from different building periods. The nave is older, dating from the Romanesque period of the XIII century, the presbytery from the Gothic of the XV century. A small Romanesque window was blocked because the painting of St. Christopher was placed there.

The main altar is from the end of the 17th century, its columns are decorated with grape ornamentation; in the niche there is the statue of St. Nicholas and above it the image of St. Joseph.

The side altar on the Epistle side bears the image of St. Cosmas and Damian with the date 1747. It was renovated in 1899. The side altar opposite with the picture of St. Gertrude and above it the picture of the Assumption of Mary is from the same time. The picture of the Seven Sorrows hangs on the wall.

Parish Church of St. Michael ob Bleiburg

The original church, whose parish priest is mentioned in the XII. It was built in the Romanesque style. Around 1400, the semicircular apse was removed and a presbytery was built. In 1684 the church burnt down and subsequently received a new nave. In 1699, the church tower was added to the west side of the building, bearing a pointed helmet. In 1737, the church received an addition with the construction of a chapel on the south wall. The church building was given its present form by a reconstruction of the nave in 1973. The interior of the presbytery is covered by a net vault. To secure the nave walls, the walls on the outside were supported with buttresses.