Anyone walking past the Kammersdorf rectory should look up: Above the side entrance, a mosaic depicts the Madonna enthroned with the Christ Child—a work one would not have expected to find on this simple postwar building.
It was created by the Weinviertel artist Hermann Bauch (1929–2006). Bauch’s art combines Christian tradition with modern visual language and demonstrates that church art is not a thing of the past, but lives on and continues to be created in our time.
The image depicts the enthroned Mother of God—a motif with a long history of significance. Since the Council of Ephesus in 431, the Enthroned Madonna has been regarded as a symbol of the Son of God becoming human. In this pose, Mary is seated not as a humble mother, but as a queen—and yet she still holds the Child.
Chapel in the Rectory—A One-of-a-Kind Structure
The mosaic adorns the postwar rectory, which fulfilled a special wish of the local community: warmth. Pastor Josef Loibl did not hesitate and commissioned architect Josef Schüller from Stronsdorf to integrate a heated chapel into the building. After a year of construction, Coadjutor Archbishop Dr. Franz Jachym consecrated the weekday chapel and the parish rectory on June 8, 1958, as part of a pastoral visit.