Phone +43 4266 82360 | Burials Hemma of Gurk | |
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Address Dompl. 11, 9342 Gurk, Austria Similar Schloss Straßburg, Alps, Hochosterwitz Castle, Museo diocesano, Klagenfurt Cathedral | ||
Dom zu gurk gurk cathedral in 360
Gurk Cathedral (German: Dom zu Gurk, 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 Roman Catholic Diocese of Gurk was built from 1140 to 1200, it is one of the most important Romanesque buildings in Austria.
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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.