Wallfahrtskirche Heiligenkreuz, Catholic pilgrimage church in Kremsmünster, Austria.
The Wallfahrtskirche Heiligenkreuz is a single-nave baroque pilgrimage church northwest of Kremsmünster, built from 1687 to plans by Carlo Antonio Carlone. Its nave measures 37 metres long, 14 wide and 15 high, with a barrel vault and a recessed, heavily stuccoed choir; the nave itself has no stucco decoration. The two tower facades remain plain because the church was never fully completed.
A farmer's votive column on his field, reported after a dream at Easter 1682, drew up to a hundred pilgrims a day; a wooden chapel followed in 1683. Abbot Erenbert Schreyvogl then funded a stone church, begun in 1687 to plans by Carlo Antonio Carlone and first used for Mass on 16 February 1693. Work resumed 1700–1702; the high altar by Johann Bader dates from 1706, and Bishop Raymund Ferdinand von Rabatta consecrated the church on 5 September 1715.
The church's name changed from Florianikirche to Heiligenkreuz around 1711 as veneration of the Holy Cross displaced that of Saint Florian. Since 1945 Fatima devotions have been held on the 13th of each month from May to October, and the church is still used for weddings, baptisms, May devotions and local pilgrimages.
The church stands about four kilometres northwest of Kremsmünster and belongs to the Kremsmünster Abbey; it is a protected monument. The nave is 37 metres long, 14 metres wide and 15 metres high, with a plain interior and a stuccoed choir. About 15 minutes on foot away lie the Schacherteiche ponds, a bird sanctuary in the Schachenwald forest.
The church was never fully completed: the plain nave and the unadorned facades of the two towers still show it. The wooden chapel of 1683 preceded the stone building begun in 1687 to plans by Carlo Antonio Carlone. The votive column that farmer Hans Adamsmayr set up in 1682 stands in the right transept, painted with frescoes of Saint Florian, Saint Leonard, the Nativity and the Crucifixion.
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