Döbling Carmelite Monastery

A large mural depicting angels, saints and the Holy Family decorates the wall above the main altar.

The altar is the work of Ludwig Schadler and also depicts the four Doctors of the Eastern Church (John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Athanasius of Alexandria) in the foreground and Jesus on the cross, flanked by his mother Mary and John the Apostle in the background.

The altar was made in 1904 by the Marmorindustrie Kiefer AG company from Oberalm using Untersberg marble in accordance with a design by Richard Jordan.

According to legend, the depiction was found by Pater Dominicus covered in dust in an old building near the first Carmelite monastery in the Roman neighborhood of Trastevere.

It was revered by female Carmelites belonging to the Ordo Carmelitarum, and Ferdinand II is supposed to have prayed before it during the Battle of White Mountain in 1620.

During World War I, the picture was carried in great processions through the streets of Vienna to St. Stephen's Cathedral, where thousands prayed before it for peace.

Even Franz Joseph I believed Mary's help could be achieved via this picture and had it brought to Schönbrunn Palace so that he too could pray for peace before it.

Above the altar, there is a copy of a wooden figure of the child Jesus from the 18th century which the Carmelites had brought from their hermitage in Mannersdorf.

It was donated by the family of Unterdöbling industrialist Johann Zacherl and shows the Transfiguration of Christ on Mount Tabor.

The chapel of Saint Teresa houses the grave of the Spanish Carmelite priest Dominicus a Jesu Maria, who participated in the foundation of the monastery in Leopoldstadt in 1632.

Behind his grave stands a white marble altar with a figure of Thérèse of Lisieux, a Carmelite nun who was canonised in 1925.