The collegiate church

An early baroque church

In the 1650s, Abbot Plazidus Hieber decided to demolish the Gothic collegiate church and the Romanesque nave. A single-nave Baroque church was built in its place. To this day, Lambach Abbey Church is considered one of the most important early Baroque churches in Austria.

Court engineer Philiberto Lucchese probably provided designs for the new church. He was also active in the construction of the Traun Verbauung. Barrel-vaulted altar niches are located in the side walls of the nave. The Regensburg sculptor Christoph Abraham Walter made statutes in 1655/56, which find their place in the niches. These are framed by double pilasters, a pillar-like form element from architecture, which project from the wall as half-columns. The spiral-shaped decorations at the top of the pilasters are reminiscent of Ionic capitals, but with angels and garlands. The programme of sculptures depicts Christ, Mary, St. Joseph, St. John the Baptist and the apostles.

Paintings of the Crucifixion and Pentecost can be found next to the front arch. At the celebration altar, the free-standing altar in the centre of the church choir, the monastery keeps the bones of St. Adalbero in a glass shrine. The cover plate of the founder's tomb, an epitaph, with the marble half-profile of St Adalbero is raised on the south wall of the church.

There are other images there, such as the presentation of the relics of St Julian to Archduchess Claudia. This scene refers to a historical event: In 1632 Archduchess Claudia gave the monastery the bones of the saint, which had been recovered from one of the Roman catacombs in 1624. On the altarpiece, an unidentified pope confirms the authenticity of the relics with his blessing hand. On the left edge of the picture, Joachim Sandrart, the painter of the picture, has depicted himself. Archduchess Claudia, or better known as Claudia de Medici, was married into the House of Habsburg and after the death of Leopold V tried to annex Protestant territories to her rule in the course of the Counter-Reformation. In the Peace of Westphalia, the annexed territories were awarded to the Protestants.

Paintings of St. Benedict, founder of the Benedictine Order, and the death of St. Joseph, husband of St. Mary the Mother of God, complete the picture programme. On the north side, the image of the rosary, the martyrdom of St. Placidus and St. Sebastian can be seen.

A very beautiful work is the baptismal font in shell form. It is carried by a childlike John the Baptist and an angel with the coat of arms of Abbot Severin Blaß.

The collegiate church itself is dedicated to the Assumption of Mary and St. Kilian, an Irish itinerant preacher who, together with his companions, proselytised in Franconia and Bavaria and died as martyrs.