Dormouse Chapel

The former branch church Höllersberg zum Heiligen Kreuz, also known as the "Church of the Seven Sleepers", stood three quarters of an hour's walk northwest of Munderfing on the Trattsmannsberg ridge on the outermost parish boundary. Mothers liked to visit it to ask their children for a good night's sleep.

Apian mentions a chapel "Heilig Creitz" around 1580, and in 1625 he mentions a "Kirchel des hl. The holy martyr dormice were venerated here. In order to increase this veneration, in 1728 the priest from Munderfing requested the construction of his own chapel, as the dormice did not even have their own altar in the church, but were "presented solely in a poor plaque hung on the wall". The ecclesiastical council in Munich rejected the construction, but approved a new choir altar in which the patron saint could be placed on top and the seven holy martyrs in the middle of the altar. The church was closed under Emperor Joseph II and demolished in 1790. The brewery in Munderfing was built with the stones from the demolition of this church. The portal surround made of Adnet marble can be seen at the entrance to the house of Franz Stockinger, Brandhuber in Munderfing 14. The church door is said to have come to Reitsham in the municipality of Lochen.

Relics from this church were three well-preserved oil paintings, two of which (Christ's head and Mary with the child) can still be seen today in the former "Karlsölde", now house Bradirn 10 (Gerti Winter), in a devotional shrine on the street side of the house.

Probably where the Church of the Holy Cross once stood, a wooden chapel was built with the image of the seven sleepers (Maximilian, Malchus, Martiniamus, Dionys, Serapion, Johannes and Konstantin) together with words of thanksgiving for deliverance from insomnia.

The oldest votive image in it is around 50 centimetres high and 40 centimetres wide. At the bottom left is a praying farmer with the inscription: "A certain farmer from here could not sleep for a long time because of bad traumas: finally a day laborer advised him to go here and make a sacrifice, which he did, and from that very hour he was and is well." (1803)

As the chapel was already in a state of decay, it was restored in 1967 by the municipality of Munderfing at a cost of 16,570 schillings. Just 60 years ago, women still made pilgrimages to the dormouse chapel in the hope that the dormouse would pray for a good night's sleep for their children.