Church of St-Vincent

Strictly speaking, Montreux is a relatively recent community, the result of touristic appeal.

A glance at the engravings of the 10th century show the pristine lake edge from Clarens to Chillon. In this area, benefiting from a microclimate ideal for human habitation as well as agricultural production, the population settlements have won out over the crops.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who was once a special guest of the Montreux region, and who memorialized the ideal conditions of the region, might not recognize it today.

Long ago, the monks who arrived in the region selected the Tufa outcropping that gave a strategic view of the only passage between the mountains and the lake edge, for the future monastery. The word “Monasterium” metamorphosed over time to become the current “Montreux,” a region covered at the time with only occasional agglomerations of buildings and small villages. A few of their ancestral village names still persist:: “we are from Chene, or from Vernex, the Planches, of Chatelard or from Vuarennes.”     

The church erected on this site is dedicated to St-Vincent, the patron-saint of the vintners, is laid out along three axes: the nave, the choir and the entry way. The materials used exemplify the financial and political vagaries faced by successive generations of members of the congregation. Sandstone and Tufa indicate respectively those who had the resources (and could afford to bring in the stone from distant quarries) and those who did not (using the materials found on the site) 

This dichotomy which was probably uncomfortable for those of the time, is in our time part of the charm of St-Vincent, where both the humble and ostentatious mix.

But, at St-Vincent the outside is as beautiful as the inside! The church-yard is the essence of simplicity. It overlooks a spectacularly beautiful panorama of nature mixed with settlements-modern and ancient.