Parish Church of St. Egydius and Coloman

The Roman Catholic parish church in Steyr is named after Saints Gidius and Koloman.It was built in the 15th century in the Gothic style and is the most visible religious structure in Steyr (Upper Austria).

Entering the church via the dark vestibule into the vast, beautiful Gothic structure of the interior gives a sense of the complex’s architectural and art-historical treasures.The sanctuary’s design by Hanns Puchspaum is exceptionally magnificent.

The hall church has three aisles but no transept and side aisles that are roughly the same width.The 4-bay nave is vaulted, with a pointed lunette barrel in the central nave and cross vaults in the side aisles.The three-aisled, three-bay choir, with a stunning ribbed roof, blends seamlessly with the nave.In the central nave, the choir ends have a 5/8 finish, while the side aisles have a 3/8 finish.The house’s vaulting is supported by continuous wrapped pillars with sculptural corbels.

The 80-meter-high six-sided north tower connects the nave and choir.It is crowned with a neo-Gothic tower rising from a star-vaulted tower hall.Richly stepped buttresses provide a static load-bearing structure in the chancel.The transverse west construction houses the great passage hall, which was built in 1522.Two entrance gates go from there into the church area, including the organ gallery on the upper floor.The entry gates are framed by curtain arches with semicircular arches.In the two western bays of the northern aisle, consoles support a gallery.

On the church’s northern side, a five-sided gateway with a double entrance and a ribbed vaulted ceiling faces Pfarrgasse.The stepped, pointed-arch gates are surrounded by door frames with curtain arches.A tympanum relief from around 1526, made of Aflenzer sand-lime brick, depicts Mary’s death and coronation over the left entry.The space above the right entrance is empty.Sandstone statues of Saint Agnes, Saint Jacob, and St. Dorothea (also known as Aflenzer Kalksandstein) were carved around 1410 and attributed to the master of Großlobming.The St. Johannes figure by Franz Erler is a neo-Gothic sculpture from 1900.The other entrances are two Gothic south gates.The west entrance is rib vaulted, and the vestibule on the east leads to the choir.

The parish church’s art treasures include superb stained glass windows, a well designed tabernacle, unusual iron work, a baptismal font, and church seats.The altar, pulpit, side altars, and pillar sculptures are from the Gothic period between 1854 and 1857 (design and execution by Engelbert Westreicher, among others).

Fidelis Schönlaub of Munich designed the neo-Gothic high altar, which was consecrated in 1856.The new altar inspired the placement of the Gothic tabernacle on the left side of the central apse.The modest entry of the sacrament house is distinctive, with six separate openwork swirl designs.Across the street is the priest’s throne with the Gothic canopy.The organ of Franz Xaver Krismann, which Anton Bruckner also played, was on the west gallery.Carl Ritter von Reslfeld’s artwork of Saint Sebastian hangs on the back wall of the left aisle.The high altar altarpiece depicting the Adoration of the Magi rests on the wall above the baptistery.The baptismal font, which is made of tin plates over a wooden core and has a relief and intricate design, is located in the tower hall’s baptistery.The sacristy door is a 1470 Nuremberg work with the municipal coat of arms, the imperial eagle with a crowned lion.

A notable feature is the late baroque iron sunflower epitaph, which was formerly in the west crypt.It recalls the smallpox pandemic of 1703.