Wallfahrtskirche Maria Lanzendorf, Parish church in Maria Lanzendorf, Austria.
Wallfahrtskirche Maria Lanzendorf is a baroque parish church in Lower Austria featuring twin towers on its facade and a richly adorned interior. The building houses a Gothic chapel and various religious artworks displayed throughout its walls.
First documented in 1145 as Maria auf der Heyd, the church was destroyed in 1683 during the Second Turkish Siege of Vienna and its Gnadenbild lost. Emperor Leopold I laid the foundation stone for a new Franciscan monastery and pilgrimage church in 1696, insisting that the Gothic choir of the old chapel be preserved. The baroque building by Franz Jänggl, probably revised by Matthias Steinl, was consecrated in 1703 and enlarged from 1728 to 1730. A fire on 4 April 1945 destroyed the roof, towers and Rottmayr's dome fresco; restoration was completed by 1956.
The church is dedicated to the Sorrowful Mother of God, and pilgrims have come here since 1418, when Maria Lanzendorf was first called a pilgrimage site. A tradition still kept is the annual procession of the Sebastian Brotherhood, founded in 1193 by the returning crusader Kilian Rausch. Seven large panel paintings from the 18th century on the chapel's exterior record the site's legends.
The church stands in the centre of Maria-Lanzendorf, south of Vienna and near Laxenburg, with the Kalvarienberg hill beside it. The nave is entered through a portal porch with a triangular gable; the Gothic Gnadenkapelle sits free-standing in the nave in front of the choir. Visitors should allow time for both the church and the hill.
The Kalvarienberg beside the church is a separate devotional hill, not part of the building itself. The source records that the church kept its Gothic grace chapel inside the Baroque shell, so the older shrine stands free in the nave before the choir, its outer walls clad in red marble.
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