Diocese of St. Gallen
With monastic beginnings
The Diocese of St. Gallen is the only Swiss diocese that originates directly from a monastery. The episcopal church was formerly the collegiate church of the Benedictine monastery closed in 1805 that goes back to Gall, the eremit, and the founder of the monastery, Othmar.
Despite this, the Diocese of St. Gallen is very young. In the 19th century, its territory, the canton of St. Gallen with the administrative region of the half-cantons Appenzell Innerrhoden and Ausserrhoden, belonged to the Dioceses of Constance and Chur. The Diocese of St. Gallen was only founded in 1824, first as a double diocese: Chur-St. Gallen. It became independent in 1847.
The patron saint of the diocese is also its titular saint, St Gall, a companion of St Columban on his wanderings as a missionary that led him to Switzerland in about AD 612.
| --> Diocese of St. Gallen | --> Cathedral | --> St. Gallen | --> St Gallus |