Sebastiankirche Kalwang

Kalwang

The old church looks picturesquely far out into the countryside and shines down into the old market town of Kalwang even at night, illuminated by bright spotlights. Surrounded by forest tops, it lends the landscape of Kalwang an immensely lovely character and would be unimaginable without it.

The church dedicated to the plague patron St. Sebastian was built in 1495 and enlarged in 1778. Especially after the Turkish invasion in 1480, the plague spread and chapels were built all over the country in honor of the plague patron, where St. Sebastian was invoked for help in plague distress. This was also the case in Kalwang.

When in 1766 a great cattle plague destroyed the livestock in the valley, but the villages of Kammern, Mautern, Kalwang, Wald and Gaishorn were miraculously spared, devotion to the Virgin Mary also increased. People attributed this miraculous help to the intercession of Mary from the "Sebastiani" mountain.

Opposite St. Sebastian's Church there is a chapel from the 18th century, which originally served as a miners' chapel, since at that time the Admont miners of the copper mines also attended the festive services on "Sebastiani" Mountain.
In the fall of 1889, this former miners' brotherhood chapel was remodeled. A statue of Lourdes by Stuffler from
from Val Gardena in Tyrol, the grotto itself was made of limestone tuff and with beautiful stalactites, and the entire chapel was completely redesigned. Also the spring, which flowed out in the chapel, was newly captured.
Popular belief attributes to its water a certain healing power for eye diseases.

The popularity of St. Sebastian's Church still exists far beyond Kalwang.