experience sankt veit

Parish Church of Saint Veit

The parish church of Saint Veit (since the 18^th century also of the Most Holy Trinity) is a Late Romanesque three-nave pillar basilica dating back to the 12^th and early 13^th centuries; with a tower for the chancel in the east, once presumably adjoined by a semicircular apsis.

The layered frame of the western portal shows four tiny pillars on each side with crocket capitals, leaves on the outside, rows of balls on the inside, that continue in the bordering of the arch. On the relief on the arch bay, we see the Lamb of God between lions and eagles and on the edge of the arch the inscription “STA. RETRZ. SISTE. PEDAM. MUN. LATUR. INEDEM. FRATRIS. AMICICIA. PANDITUR. ISTA. VIA” (Stand, stop your pace! If you bring your sacrifice to this house, your brother’s love will open up to you). A Celtic symbol can be seen in the stag antlers above the portal.

Inside the church there is a Late Baroque altar of the Virgin (1752) and one of Saint Florian (1747) made by Johann Pacher, a wood carver from St. Veit. The Lady’s altar has been used as the main altar since 1958/59. Left of the Floriani altar there is a transportable Baroque organ.

On the outside walls of the church, old tombstones and Roman stones are bricked in. When towards the end of the 18^th century, the cemetery around the church was closed, the most beautiful tombstones were bricked into the western and southern wall of the church; partly Renaissance (Pacobello).