Saint George Church, Parish church in Stainach-Pürgg, Austria

Saint George Church is a white-plastered Romanesque building with a shingled roof and a massive square west tower topped by a pyramid roof. Its nave has three bays divided by fluted pillars, flanked by two narrow aisles, the northern one higher and carrying a gallery. The narrower Gothic choir has a 5/8 polygonal close with buttresses and tall pointed windows.

Pürgg was founded as a proprietary church of the Traungau margraves, rulers of Styria, and was consecrated on 17 July 1130 by Bishop Wocho of Seckau as a three-aisled Romanesque building. In the early 14th century the choir tower was replaced by a massive west tower and the choir was rebuilt in Gothic style, consecrated in 1324. The parish grew powerful in the High Middle Ages, reaching from Aussee to Liezen; its best-known priest, Konrad Zeidler (d. 1442), was chancellor to King Frederick III.

The parish once stretched from Aussee to Liezen, and its priests were also landowners; the best known, Konrad Zeidler (d. 1442), was chancellor to King Frederick III. His gravestone stands in the south aisle, and a bust on the north gallery balustrade, flanked by lions holding the Babenberg and Styrian shields, is thought to show him.

The church, its surrounding cemetery and the neighbouring parish house sit at the end of a 150-metre cul-de-sac branching southwest from the village main road, at the southwestern edge of Pürgg. The site lies at 770 metres on the rim of a plateau above the Ennstal, opposite the eastern slope of the 2351-metre Grimming. A covered wooden bridge links the parish house directly to the gallery over the north aisle.

The charnel house (Karner) beneath the choir owes its existence to the steep drop between the west tower and the choir, which allowed a lower chamber to be built into the slope. The church also has a second, unusual entrance: a fully enclosed wooden bridge leads from the parish house directly to the gallery over the north aisle, with a masonry pier at its midpoint.