The Maltese Church (german: Malteserkirche) (full name - Church of Saint John the Baptist) is a

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

church of the

Knights Hospitaller The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem ( la, Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), was a medieval and early modern Catholic Church, Catholic Military ord ...

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, on Kärntner Straße in the 1. Wiener Gemeindebezirk

Innere Stadt The Innere Stadt (; Central Bavarian: ''Innare Stod'') is the 1st municipal Districts of Vienna, district of Vienna () located in the center of the Austrian capital. The Innere Stadt is the old town of Vienna. Until the city boundaries were expa ...

. The first church on this site is mentioned in 1217, as a "House of the Prueder of the Order of Saint John", a

commandry In the Middle Ages, a commandery (rarely commandry) was the smallest administrative division of the European landed properties of a military order. It was also the name of the house where the knights of the commandery lived.Anthony Luttrell and G ...

to care and support crusaders. The current building was built in the mid 15th century. In the 17th century it was a favoured preaching location for

Abraham a Sancta Clara Abraham a Sancta Clara (July 2, 1644December 1, 1709) was an Augustinian monk. Early life He was born Johann Ulrich Megerle, in Kreenheinstetten, Germany. He was described as "a very eccentric but popular Augustinian monk".Chambers Biographic ...

. This building was rebuilt to fit contemporary taste in the Baroque era and in 1806, and the Kommendenhaus (1839) and parts of the church (1857) had stained glass added during the 19th century. The Order ran into financial trouble after the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and in 1933 had to sell the church and the Johanneshof, and the church was given over to other uses within a historical preservation order. It was bought back in 1960 and restored in stages in 1968, 1972 and 1983–84, finishing with a general restoration in 1998. The church's high altarpiece was painted in 1730 by Johann Georg Schmidt. The balcony type Empire marble pulpit was built during the 1806-08 reconstruction; it is decorated with a Maltese cross, a dove and gilt rosettes.

Gallery

Maltese Church Vienna 01.JPG, Church façade MalteserkircheInnen.jpg, High altar of the Malteserkirche Wien - Malteserkirche, Orgel.JPG, Organ of the Maltese Church Wien Malteserkirche - Valette-Denkmal 1.jpg, Monument for grand master Jean Parisot de la Valette, 1806 Malteserkirche 2013-09-21-05-23-18.jpg, Church interior Wien-Innenstadt, die Malteserkirche, die Kanzel.JPG, Empire pulpit

External links

*
Informationen on the church on the website of the Großpriorat von Österreich
{{Authority control Roman Catholic churches in Vienna Church buildings of the Knights Hospitaller Buildings and structures in Innere Stadt 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Austria