Parish Church Schörfling

The Parish Church of St. Gallus is a tall, two nave late Gothic hall church with three central pillars.


On the front pillar closest to the altar, there us a Gothic stone statue of St. Nicholas (the patron of saint of sailors and raftsmen), beneath him a coat of arms showing two oars, at the top two stone busts (St. Peter and St. Gallus). The statue of St. Mary on the left side altar (presumably by Lienhart Astl) and the two reliefs (Nativity, Mary and Elizabeth) on the right wall of the chancel are remainders of the original interior (winged altar). The big tableau of the former Baroque high altar (Assumption of St. Gallus), of which only the tabernacle remained, can now be found in the right side chapel. The large crucifix above the present high altar was taken from the Baroque via crucis and was introduced here in 1926; To the left and to the right of the altar, there are two larger than life baroque statues (St. Ambrose with the bee hive and St. Augustine with the burning heart).

The construction of the church tower started in 1638, the onion dome has been there since 1873 (height 60 meters). Outside of the church, the remnants of the former cemetery are: a barred glass window at the foot of the tower with partially labeled skulls and bones from the 19th Century, a tomb stone of the last count palatine of Khevenhüller Frankenburg, Hugo Anton Johann (d. 1884) near the archway on the wall a grave panel of the last Imperial Count of Khevenhüller Frankenburg, Hugo Anton Johann (d. 1884). - Since 1581, the Khevenhüller family had owned the castle and domain Kammer.

Funerary shield

The side entrance of the church dates from the Baroque period. A funerary shield with the arms of Baron Egg (1608) is fixed to the right wall of the entrance hall. Hanging up funerary shields in addition to epitaphs goes back to the Middle Ages and was reserved for the nobility. In times of connfessionalisation this practice became even more common, because it was simply impossible to build a tomb for each nobleman, especially in smaller churches. The funerary shield tradition stems from the germanic custom of burying the deceased with their weapons or of putting their weapons up at the grave. Instead of the actual fighting shield, a special disc-shaped funerary shield became common from about 1400.

Source: www.atterwiki.at