Church St. Elisabeth

The former parish church of St. Lorenzen, the Rector’s Church of St. Elisabeth, is located on Völkermarkter Straße in Klagenfurt.The church’s consecration title is St. Lorenz, and its patron saint is St. Elisabeth.

The church was established as a convent church for the Elisabethinenkloster between 1720 and 1732 and was financed by Archduchess Marianne, who lived in the existing episcopal house from 1768 until her death in 1789.In 1784, the sacred structure became a suburban church, and in 1853, it became an independent parish church.Bishop Alois Schwarz disbanded the parish and merged it with the cathedral parish in 2010.

The church is a north-facing central baroque structure with a longitudinal axis and a cross-shaped floor layout.The steeple with a curved pointed spire at the southwest corner dominates the church’s somber exterior.Above the previous south-facing entrance portal in the gable is a rocaille and the year 1730.

The larger organ gallery with a flat barrel vault and the three-bay choir, which was extended by two bays in 1962, distort the original well-proportioned interior.In the chancel and towards the organ gallery, a barrel vault with lunettes rises.Josef Veiter painted the Coronation of the Virgin Mary and the four Evangelists on the domed Patzl vault in the central square in 1890.The walls are structured by richly cranked cornices on pilasters, blind arcades, and wall recesses.The nave’s short cross arms are barrel-vaulted.The church interior is illuminated by three tall arched windows with lunette windows above on the west wall of the choir and four round-arched or segmented-arched windows on the south wall.

The wall-filling, flat high altar from 1784 features a Crucifixion painting by Knoller in 1778 and a top painting of Saint Laurentius’ martyrdom repaired by Josef Veiter.On the door of the late Baroque tabernacle, which was constructed as a domed building with columns, is a relief depicting the Descent from the Cross.On the side are two reliquaries from around the year 1700, each with a miniature portrait of the apostles Peter and Paul in a magnificent actanthus frame.Michael Zill produced the two massive kneeling angels in 1786.

Around 1730, the two side altars with columns and volutes were created. The depictions of the Descent from the Cross and Saint Joseph can be found on the left side altar, as well as statues of Saints Peter and Paul on the side and Saints Dominic, Francis, and Raphael on the top.The bones of St. Clare are housed in the 1749 glass shrine.Josef Veiter painted the altarpiece of the right side altar with the alms-giving Saint Elisabeth in 1884, while the top painting depicts Saint Anne with Mary.The altar figurines depict King David and, most likely, St. Leonhard, as well as St. Monica, Clare, and an angel from the essay.

On the east wall is a 1729 baroque console statue of St. John of Nepomuk.In the chancel, the baptismal font has a neoclassical wooden top and an Anabaptist group.A four-figure crucifixion group made of lead from circa 1780, attributed to Balthasar Ferdinand Moll, may be seen in the crypt constructed in 1786 by order of Archduchess Marianne.