This is what it says in the Herrenchiemsee official guide, published in the third edition in 2013 by the Bavarian Palaces and Lakes Administration: “Former cathedral collegiate church (not accessible) dedicated to St. Sixtus and St. Sebastian.

1676 to 1679 extensive new building by Lorenzo Sciasca on older foundations (. . .).

1807 to 1820 auction of the church inventory, partial demolition and installation of a brewery.”

Hannes Hintermeier

Feuilleton correspondent for Bavaria and Austria.

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Since last summer, that's no longer quite true, because the Bavarian Minister of Finance, to whose empire the castles and lakes administration belongs, opened the church again until Corona soon closed it.

The guide will certainly be updated for the next edition, as the prominently located collegiate church, popularly known as Inseldom, is still both a former church and former brewery, but is now accessible as a museum of some of the rather strangest architectural history around.

But first things first, and in this case it goes back to the seventh century.

Excavations carried out on Herrenchiemsee from 1979 onwards dated the pre-Carolingian church building at the highest point of the island to the year 629 – or earlier – based on the remains of posts.

Hermann Danninger, former director of the Prehistoric State Collections who died two years ago, was able to prove this on the basis of dendrological investigations.

Oddly enough, the dating correlates with that which Johann Georg Turmair, called Aventinus, the father of Bavarian historiography, made in his "Annales ducum Boiariae" written from 1517 to 1522.

"Aventinus relied on the missionary Eustasius, but possibly had sources that are lost today," suspects Thomas Marr, who is responsible for the island cathedral in the palace administration, among other things.

Founded before the year 629, the building is in the top group in the race for the oldest Bavarian monastery.

A competition that local politicians in particular like to encourage because they expect tourist effects.

Marr is naturally skeptical about such dating races.

This church was never small, in later centuries the Abbey of St. Salvator became an Augustinian monastery in the High Middle Ages.

From 1216 it was the seat of the diocese of Chiemsee, appointed by the powerful Bishop of Salzburg.

In the seventeenth century the church was completely redesigned in the early Baroque style.

Blind windows can still be seen in the façade, where figures of St. Augustine, Benedict, Sebastian and Sixtus once stood in niches.

But you have to look closely: The fact that the building is no longer recognizable as a church at first glance, but looks like an oversized barn with a half-hipped roof, is also due to the demolition.

Without regard to losses

Because with the secularization the monastery is dissolved in 1807, the building profaned and sold.

Regardless of the loss of the historic structure: the Gothic spire of the south tower had already collapsed in 1727, after which the towers were given French caps.

In 1819/20 both towers were cut and the chancel removed.

In the remaining nave of the nave - possibly not until the 1960s - a brewhouse, malt house, kiln, beer cellar and everything else necessary for a brewery was built on four main floors.

The history of this transformation has not yet been explored in detail.