Nikolauskirche/ Church of St. Nicholas, Austria

 

St. Nicholas Church is located in the northern part of the popular resort of Bad Gastein, about a kilometer from the city's main train station. This Catholic church was built at the beginning of the 15th century in the late Gothic style. The solemn consecration of the temple took place in 1412. It is a rather powerful building, characterized by a gable roof and narrow but high windows, typical of the Gothic style. The exterior of the building will feature a semicircular choir room, decorated with a series of similar windows and supported by buttresses. The northern portal is replete with a variety of graceful arcades and cornices. The architectural ensemble is complemented by a bell tower topped with a long octagonal spire. Also at the top of this tower stand out a small but very pretty window, known as biphorium, which is an arched opening divided into two parts by a column.

 

Position

The church on a hillside at the northern end of Bad Gastein next to the road to the district of Badbruck is surrounded by a cemetery.

 

Architecture

The nave has a square floor plan with a drawn-in choir with a polygonal end under a steep gabled roof. In the south there is a three-fold round-arched portal with a bar and in the north a round-arched portal closed with a rectangle with corner consoles and a cornice frame. The chancel has stepped fluted buttresses and a coffin cornice.

The north tower is unstructured and has biforia windows in the south and north and narrow arched windows in the east and west and closes with truncated gables and an octagonal clapboard pointed helmet.

The nave is a square, single-column space with a vault rising from a central column in an octagonal star configuration. The triumphal arch is gorged and pointed. The recessed chancel has a floor raised by three steps and a ribbed vault with round keystones on the services. On the left in the choir there is a gorged sacristy portal with a straight end and corner consoles with a late Gothic iron plate door and a chamfered rectangular tabernacle. In the sacristy there is a barrel vault with lunettes and a sacristy box from the beginning of the 17th century.

 

Furnishing

Late Gothic wall paintings in the nave from the second half of the 15th century in the southeast corner show Christ in the mandorla, the twelve apostles and the Last Judgment, on the south wall the Root of Jesse and a donor figure with the coat of arms of the Framynnger family with the designation 1517. In the north-east corner, frescoes from around 1470 to 1480 by the Master von Schöder, some of which have been preserved in fragmentary form, show: Christ on the Mount of Olives, the flagellation and crowning with thorns, the carrying of the cross, the crucifixion, Christ takes Adam and Eve out of limbo into the transfiguration, the resurrection and ascension. Late Gothic frescoes in the choir show the Manna blessing, the protective cloak Madonna, Saints Sebastian, Peter and Paul, representations from the life of St. Nicholas and in the vaulted areas angels with the instruments of the Passion.

The restoration of the frescoes was initiated by the Rotary Club Bad Gastein on the occasion of the 600th anniversary celebrations in 1989 and was largely financed as a long-term project. One third of the total sum of ATS 3 million was raised by the Rotary Club Bad Gastein.

In 2022 the church was re-roofed with larch shingles.