Church

St. George Church

Kirche St. Georg , Seestraße 4, 78479 Reichenau

To conserve its ancient frescoes, the church of St. George is closed from May to September. During these months, it can only be visited as part of a guided tour, offered daily at 12:30 p.m. and 4 p.m.

Guided group tours can be booked year-round through the tourist information office. Tel: +49 (0) 7534 9207 0 or via fuehrungen@reichenau-tourismus.de

St. George parish church was built after 888 by Abbot Hatto III (888-913).

In 896, Abbot Hatto traveled to Rome with King Arnulf for his imperial coronation where he received the head of St. George from Pope Formosus. Hatto returned to Reichenau and placed the relic in the crypt of the newly built church. Large parts of this original basilica are still intact today.

Eight large-scale murals (4 m by 2 m) in the central nave show miracles of Jesus and illustrate the power of Jesus over natural forces, illnesses, life and death.

The murals were created at the end of the 10th c. They are among the earliest of their kind north of the Alps and are closely related to the sacred illustrated books from the Reichenau scriptorium, which reached its peak around 1000.