Zermeiggern Chapel

There was a chapel in the hamlet of Zermeiggern as early as 1707. At the beginning of the 1960s, the compensating reservoir for the Mattmark Reservoir was to be constructed at the place where the idyllic hamlet with its sun-bronzed houses stood. This meant that the hamlet and its chapel, which had been rebuilt in 1910, were submerged. Mattmark AG, the company who operated the reservoir, promised to build a new chapel in another location. The plans were drawn up by architect Raymund Zurbriggen from Sitten. The last mass in the old chapel was celebrated on the feast day of St Anna on 26 July 1962. Exactly one year later, on the feast of St Anna, the new chapel was consecrated with a fest.

On 30 August 1965, huge blocks of ice fell from the Allalin Glacier onto the workers quarters which was located a little below today’s reservoir wall. 88 people lost their lives. The bodies retrieved from the ice found their first resting place in the Zermeiggern Chapel, before they could be transferred to their home locations. The two side panels record the names of the victims of this catastrophe and all the others who died in the building of the reservoir. The Zermeiggern Chapel therefore acts as a place of memorial where those who died in the Mattmark catastrophe are remembered.

At first, the statues of the old chapel served as altar decoration. Some of them were stolen in 1975. The remaining statues were then moved to the parish church of St Barbara.

Local artist Werner Zurbriggen designed the Stations of the Cross, the window and the three paintings in the chapel. The painting on the left depicts the resurrected Jesus in the four elements of water, fire, air and earth. The painting in the centre shows ‘Virgin and Child with St Anne’ a popular composition in which Anna, her daughter the Virgin Mary and Jesus were depicted together. The painting on the right indicates the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary by the Archangel Gabriel.