The Church of the Holy Spirit stands right by the parish church of St. Elizabeth, in the centre of the town core of Slovenj Gradec. It was built until 1428 as a hospital chapel, connected with the town's almshouse. It is a one-nave building, concluded with slate saddle roof with a slender roof tower. Before the end of the 15th century, the entrance to the church from the town side was made (the nave was reconstructed in the years 1490-1495). For that purpose, a portal with the date 1494 was set on the west wall. The presbytery was reconstructed already in 1447.
The interior in the nave is net and rib vaulted and has a long choir that takes up two star-shaped sections of the vaulting and the five-eighths ending. The triumphal arch between the presbytery and the nave is strongly profiled. In the middle of the 15th century the Bavarian fresco painter Andreas of Otting painted the entire north wall of the presbytery with Christ's Cycle divided into different square shaped scenes outlined with a border. The motifs, arrangement and edge decorations are taken from wall tapestries or fasting tablecloths. At the edge of the triumphal arch wall there is an added portrait of donators and a correlating inscription.
On the exterior triumphal arch wall, a scene with Christ the Judge and additions pertaining to the Last Judgement was painted around 1500. The painting in the Florian altar is the work of Mihael Skobel (1633), and the main altar was designed by Jakob Jurij Mersi in the second half of the 18th century. The image of the Pentecost was painted in 1777 by Janez Andrej Strauss. In the north side altar stands a Gothic sculpture of the Holy Trinity in the upper niche.
In front of the church a monument to the writer and priest Franc Ksaver Meško was set up in 1994 (sculptor Rade Nikolić). The key of the church is in the nearby vicarage, which houses an interesting collection of the priest Soklič.
Information:
Tourist Information Office
Glavni trg 24
2380 Slovenj Gradec
Tel. : ++386 2 881 21 16
Tel. 2 : ++386 51 320 978
Fax : ++386 2 881 21 17
E-mail : tic@slovenjgradec.si