Place in Carinthia, Austria
Maria Worth
is a municipality in the district of
Klagenfurt-Land
in the
Austrian
state of
Carinthia
. The centre of the
resort town
is situated on a peninsula at the southern shore of the
Worthersee
. In the east, the municipal area borders the Carinthian capital
Klagenfurt
. The municipality consists of the two
Katastralgemeinden
Maria Worth and Reifnitz.
History
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A first
St. Mary's
Church was erected in about 875 during the
Christianization
in former
Carantania
, led by the
Bishops of Freising
based at
Innichen Abbey
. It was first mentioned in an 894 deed as
Maria Werd
?because the site was at that time an island. (The
Old High German
term
Worth
or
Werder
, like the
Slovene
Otok
, denotes a piece of land surrounded by water.) The church served for the
translation
of the relics of Saints
Primus and Felician
and played an important role within the
Christian mission
in the
Duchy of Carinthia
.
In about 1150 Bishop
Otto of Freising
founded a college of
canons
here, and had the small
Winterkirche
chapel built beside the
collegiate church
. In 1399 both churches were destroyed by fire, and afterwards rebuilt in the present
late Gothic
style. The Freising
Prince-Bishops
gradually lost their influence in Carinthia, and about 1500 the college finally became an annex of
Millstatt Abbey
, led from 1598 by
Jesuits
.
With the
Suppression of the Society of Jesus
in 1773, Millstatt Abbey was dissolved and Maria Worth passed to the re-established Bendectine
St. Paul's Abbey in the Lavanttal
in 1809. Not until 1903 the present-day municipality was established on territory of neighbouring
Schiefling
and
Keutschach
.
Sights
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Maria Worth is a centre of Austrian and European summer tourism, with 330,000 arrivals (although these numbers have declined sharply since the 1950s). Today's parish church Saints Primus and Felician stands on the highest point of the peninsula, with the neighbouring
Winterkirche
beneath it. It is a major
pilgrimage
site and, due to its romantic setting, a popular wedding church. Another tourist attraction is the nearby
Pyramidenkogel
, an 851-meter high mountain with a 54-meter high observation platform, the Pyramidenkogel Tower.
In 1901 the composer
Gustav Mahler
built a villa near the hamlet of Maiernigg, on the lakeside in the east of the municipality, where he was already using a "
composing hut
" in which most of his works written between 1900 and 1907 were composed, including his
Symphonies No. 5-8
. The hut is now open as a small museum. Through his friendship with
Alma Mahler
, the composer's widow,
Alban Berg
also composed at Maiernigg, which was visited by many of the
Viennese
artistic elite.
Notable people
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Twin towns
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References
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External links
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