Gurk Cathedral

Gurk Cathedral
Gurk Cathedral
Pfarr- und ehemalige Domkirche Mariae Himmelfahrt (German); Dom zu Gurk (German); Bazilika v Krki (Slovene);
	Gurk Cathedral
Location	Gurk, Carinthia
Country	Austria
Denomination	Catholic
History
Founded	c. 1140
Founder(s)	Bishop Roman I of Gurk
Consecrated	1200
Architecture
Functional status	Cathedral
Style	Romanesque
Administration
Diocese	Diocese of Gurk
Clergy
Bishop(s)	Josef Marketz

Gurk Cathedral (German: Dom zu Gurk, officially Pfarr- und ehemalige Domkirche Mariae Himmelfahrt, Slovene: Bazilika v Krki) is a Romanesque pillar basilica in Gurk, in the Austrian state of Carinthia. The former cathedral and current co-cathedral of the Catholic Diocese of Gurk was built from 1140 to 1200. It is one of the most important Romanesque buildings in Austria.^[1]

With its consecration in 1174, the grave of Saint Hemma of Gurk was relocated there from former Gurk Abbey, a Benedictine nunnery she had founded in 1043 and which was dissolved by Archbishop Gebhard of Salzburg in 1070/72, in order to fund the newly established Gurk diocese and the construction of the cathedral. The cathedral chapter established in 1123 moved to Klagenfurt in 1787.

Construction

The elongated building has a westwork with two towers, a gallery, a crypt, and three apses. The crypt, with its 100 columns, is the oldest part of the cathedral. In the middle of the rural Gurktal, the imposing 60 m (200 ft) tall twin steeple of the cathedral can be seen from a very great distance.