History and furnishings
Originally a filial church of the great Slivnica parish, a church already stood on this site by the first half of the 13th century at the latest. The essentially Romanesque building, with a choir or eastern bell tower, was rebuilt and enlarged several times over the following centuries. The Baroque period left the deepest mark on it. Under pastor Jožef Gašper Zamlika, who served here between 1710 and 1750, an extensive renovation began. By 1722 a large presbytery had been added to the nave on the west side, reversing the church's orientation. The nave was then rebuilt, distinguished by an exceptional spaciousness with two rows of shallow chapels and galleries above them. The renewed church with seven altars was consecrated in 1730.
In the following years an elaborately articulated chapel of St. Francis Xavier was added on the south side, its architecture attributed to Jožef Hoffer (c. 1700–1762). The northern, late-Gothic rosary chapel was also re-vaulted in the Baroque period; together with the remains of a Gothic-Renaissance fresco of St. Christopher on the south outer wall of the nave, it is the only visible remnant of the old church.
The church received its final form in 1904, when the bell tower — newly built towards the end of the 19th century — was given a Neo-Renaissance façade designed by one of the leading Styrian architects of late historicism, Hans Pascher (1858–1942). The interior is richly furnished, and the presbytery and both chapels are adorned with Baroque wall paintings. The earliest are the frescoes on the vault and end wall of the presbytery, painted in 1722 and 1723. Alongside the church's patron, the martyrdoms of St. James and St. Paul are depicted, together with personifications of the four cardinal virtues; the former high altar painted on the wall, with the martyrdom of St. Bartholomew at its centre, is now entirely covered by a later altar superstructure.
The paintings of the Chapel of St. Francis Xavier — depicting the life, missionary work and glorification of this Jesuit saint — were signed on the east wall in 1738 by the established Graz painter Filip Karl Laubmann (1703–1792). At that time Laubmann was also painting for the Dominican nuns at Studenice.
The most recent Baroque painting is in the northern chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary. The scenes on this theme were painted in the 1760s by the fresco painter Anton Jožef Lerchinger (c. 1720 – after 1787).
The church is especially distinguished by its rich Baroque furnishings. In the 1760s, 1770s and 1780s it was almost entirely furnished by the finest Lower-Styrian sculptor of the age, Jožef Holzinger (1735–1797). His works include, among others, the high altar of St. Bartholomew, the altars of St. Sebastian, St. John of Nepomuk and Our Lady of the Rosary, the tabernacle of the wall-painted altar of St. Francis Xavier and the pulpit. The finest is the Neoclassical high altar of 1787 with a monumental painting of St. Bartholomew, painted in 1782 by the Austrian painter Martin Johann Schmidt (1718–1801), known as Kremser-Schmidt. Worthy of note as well is the organ of 1715, the work of the Graz organ-maker Andreas Schwarz († 1734), which was enlarged in 1782 by his grandson Franz Xaver Schwarz (c. 1743–1810).
Because of its architecture, paintings and furnishings, the parish church of St. Bartholomew the martyr — whose feast falls on 24 August — is an outstanding monument of Styrian Baroque and one of the most important sacred monuments in this area.