Church of St. Peter in Malečnik

The parish of St Peter near Maribor dates back to 1236, when it was first mentioned as the parish of St Peter on the Rock. The first church was built by the Knights of Malta from Melje, who had estates in the area of Malečnik. The church is mentioned in 1236, when the adjacent village was in the possession of the Knights of the Order (ad sacrum Petrum in villa nostra). However, according to the patrocinum, the church is certainly older than the first mention. In 1279, the property was sold to the Benedictine monastery of Admont; in the two documents relating to this sale, the church is mentioned (circa Marcpurch apud sanctum Petrum), but only as a topographical reference, not as the object of the sale, so it is not known to whom it belonged at the time and what status it had. The existence of the parish is attested in 1338, when the parish priest Hartnid agreed to the installation of a chaplain at the chapel of St. Ožbalt in Hrastovec. The parish then appears in the 1455/56 prebend census as one of the three granted by the Maribor parish priest. Until the second half of the 18th century, the parish of Šempeter was subordinate to the churches of St Martin in Vurberg (Dvorjane), St Margareth (Pernica) and St Barbara (Korena). The predecessor of today's church stood a little lower until 1730, and the bell tower remains, which is still connected to the original church, which was also shorter, extending only as far as the present presbytery. In the 18th century, a completely new Baroque period began for the Malečnik church. The river Drava increasingly eroded the bank, threatening the church on the unstable sedimentary pier. Therefore, the parish priest, Dr. Janez Sittich, decided to "relocate" the church. The year on the triumphal arch indicates that the church was consecrated in 1730, thus completing the main work on and in the church. The stuccoes were painted with allegorical motifs and Latin sayings, which were certainly collected and arranged by the church builder, the parish priest Sittich. In 1871, the experienced Furlan fresco painter from Gumin (Gemone), Jacob Brollo (Gumin, 1834- Gumin, 1918), was invited to paint the medallions on the stuccoes with his assistants, but this time with new motifs, with the church fathers, the evangelists with angels with the symbols of the four last things and the divine virtues. The interior is decorated in Baroque style with Straub altarpieces, paintings and stucco, making the Malečnik church one of the most important monuments of the Styrian Baroque as an example of a complete Baroque monument. The unique catacombs with 64 burial niches are hidden beneath the church.