Gurk, Carinthia, Austria

🇦🇹 Gurk (Krka) is an Austrian market town and former episcopal see in the District of Sankt Veit an der Glan, Carinthia.

Geography The community of Gurk is surrounded by alpine meadows and vast high forests. It marks the centre of the sparsely populated Gurk Valley. Downstream on the Gurk, lies the small town of Straßburg, from whose fortress the Prince-Bishops of Gurk reigned.

Subdivisions Towns: Pisweg, Gruska, Gurk; Communities: Dörfl, Finsterdorf, Föbing, Gassarest, Glanz, Gruska, Gurk, Gwadnitz, Hundsdorf, Kreuzberg, Krön, Masternitzen, Niederdorf, Pisweg, Ranitz, Reichenhaus, Straßa, Sutsch, Zabersdorf, Zedl, Zedroß, Zeltschach

Neighboring municipalities • Straßburg • Weitensfeld im Gurktal • Mölbling • Frauenstein

History The name Gurk ("die Gurgelnde" or "the Gurgling one") comes from the river of the same name. The area was settled around 2000 years ago, but it only achieved any importance after Carinthia was incorporated by Bavaria.

After the death of her husband and her sons, Saint Hemma of Gurk founded a religious house on the market place of what is now Gurk. However, Gurk Abbey did not have a long existence: its site was used in 1072 for the cathedral and bishop's palace of the newly founded diocese of Gurk by the Archbishop of Salzburg, whose seat was in the northern part of Carinthia. Gurk was the bishop's seat until 1787; his residence is now located in Klagenfurt.

On June 25, 1988, Pope John Paul II visited the cathedral and prayed in the crypt at the grave of Saint Hemma. The first papal visit in the history of Carinthia was a big media event and brought a thousand men to an open-air mass in front of the cathedral.

Gurk was named a "European Municipality" by the Council of Europe in 1998.

Gurk Cathedral Gurk Cathedral is a Romanesque pillar basilica in Gurk, in the Austrian state of Carinthia. The former cathedral and current co-cathedral of the Catholic Diocese of Gurk was built from 1140 to 1200. It is one of the most important Romanesque buildings in Austria.

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.

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.