Kalvarienbergkirche, Baroque parish church in Hernals district, Vienna, Austria.
Kalvarienbergkirche is a parish church with baroque architecture in Hernals, featuring white walls, several spires, and decorative details typical of this style. The building sits on elevated ground and incorporates this topography as an architectural feature.
The old parish church of Hernals, first documented in 1301, was destroyed in 1529 and became Lutheran in 1548 or 1568. After the Counter-Reformation it was returned to Catholic use in 1625. A Holy Sepulchre church and a seven-station Way of the Cross were built in 1639, but both were largely destroyed in 1683. In 1710 Viennese citizens rebuilt the route as a Kalvarienberg, completed in 1717, and the present church was rebuilt by Josef Ritter in 1766–1769 and enlarged by Richard Jordan in 1889–1894.
The name comes from the Kalvarienberg built in 1710, a stairway with seven chapels on each side leading to a crucifixion group, later enclosed by the church. The Hernalser Kirtag fair grew around it, known for its Bamkraxler pastry. Inside, the left side altar holds a copy of the Mariahilf image found in 1683 in the Ottoman camp, used there as a target.
The church stands on Sankt-Bartholomäus-Platz in the old centre of Hernals, slightly raised above street level. The covered Kalvarienberg passage runs along three sides of the building, beginning at small entrance houses flanking the main church room and continuing up stairs to the crucifixion chapel. The parish office next door at Sankt-Bartholomäus-Platz 3 has served as the Pfarrhof since 1861.
The Calvary walk around the church has fourteen partly full-relief baroque figures in niches: on the right scenes of the Passion and the defeat of the seven deadly sins, on the left the virtues of Mary and the Seven Last Words. The route begins at small entrance houses beside the main nave and climbs stairways to a crucifixion chapel.
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