Loretokirche, Baroque church in Altstadt, Salzburg, Austria.

The Loretokirche is a baroque church in Salzburg's old town with a rectangular nave and wooden coffered ceiling. It features three attached chapels and a simple facade with a marble portal.

Archbishop Paris von Lodron commissioned the church in 1633 to provide refuge for Capuchin nuns fleeing Landshut during the Thirty Years War. The building became a shelter for religious communities in that turbulent period.

The church takes its name from the Marian shrine of Loreto in Italy. Three miraculous images of the Black Madonna are venerated here: in the left side chapel, a copy of Maria Einsiedeln; in the right, Maria Loreto with Saints Joachim and Anne and an angel carrying the Holy House; and in a niche, Maria von Altötting.

The church stands in the right bank of Salzburg's old town, near the boundary with the Neustadt, and is part of the UNESCO-listed historic centre. Look for the marble portal bearing Archbishop Paris Lodron's coat of arms; the nave connects to the octagonal choir chapel through a narrow barrel-vaulted passage. The interior is a single hall with a wooden coffered ceiling, so the chapels and the 1735 wrought-iron grille are easy to find on a short visit.

The church houses a small ivory carving of Jesus, known as the Loretokindl, measuring just a few centimeters in height. The figure was decorated by nuns in the 17th century with a jewel-embroidered cloak that survives to this day.