Pfarre Aspern

Pfarre Aspern is a Roman Catholic parish church dedicated to Saint Martin in Vienna’s Donaustadt district. It stands in Aspern, on a hill beside a former community defensive tower. The wheelchair-accessible church square gathers monuments, a chapel, and traces of an older cemetery.

A flood destroyed the earlier church in 1670, and the replacement was consecrated in 1671. During the Battle of Aspern in 1809, Austrian and French forces fought around the church, changing control nine times. Johann von Hiller ordered the church burned because French sharpshooters occupied its tower. Reconstruction followed between 1810 and 1813, while Franz Claudius Demblin added a quarter-circle western extension in 1998 and 1999.

Inside, Ludwig Mayer’s 1862 high-altarpiece shows the Roman centurion Martin. Johann Georg Fischer built the divided organ, which first sounded during the 1813 Saint Martin festival. Four bells hang above, including a 180-kilogram bell cast in 1856. North of the church, the 1670 Sebastianikapelle houses the Aspern-Essling 1809 museum, while Anton Dominik Fernkorn’s 1858 Lion of Aspern commemorates battle dead. A wooden shelter covers the sandstone lion in winter, beside the statue of the Risen Christ.