Supported by Albrecht von Bonstetten, the dean of the Einsiedeln Abbey allowed the two young women to enter the monastery life in 1491 and 1494 respectively.

[1] However, morally questionable conditions prevailed in the abbey and the young girls were molested by priests, so Katharina and her sister returned for a short time to their family's house.

Katharina von Zimmern reorganized the finances of the abbey, tried to regain the old comprehensive right of coinage of the city, and was very active in construction and art.

[1] She led the construction of the abbey buildings, which existed until 1898, as well as the interior painting of the former Maria chappel in the Fraumünster cathedral, a church bell with humanistic inscriptions.

Two of the beautiful, intricately decorated rooms known as Hof der Äbtissin, where the abbess kept audience, were installed in 1892 at the Swiss National Museum.

[1] As Reichsfürstin (imperial princess) the abbess was in the Holy Roman Empire part of a strictly limited group of about 100 people who were in the hierarchy directly below the Kurfürst's.

[3] Living in transition times, Katharina von Zimmern allowed Oswald Myconius, a close friend of Zwingli, to teach Latin to the women at the cathedral school .

In January 1519 Ulrich Zwingli began at the Grossmünster church to put the Gospel into the center of the mass and to translate the Bible into the German language.

[1] On 8 December 1524, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, Katharina von Zimmern passed the abbey into the possession of the city of Zürich.

But Katharina began again a new life: a few months after the surrender of the abbey, she married Eberhard von Reischach and gave birth, despite their advanced age, to two children, a daughter and a son who died early.

Eberhard von Reischach was the member of an impoverished noble family from Hegau, was 15 years older than Katharina, and was in the service of the Duke of Württemberg.

Katharina von Zimmern allowed Zwingli to preach in Fraumünster every Friday when there was market day on the Münsterhof square.

[1] She married one of Zwingli's followers, and as a widow she stayed in the city and actively participated in the newly formed Reformed Church of the canton of Zürich.

[1][7] As well as the interior decoration of the dormitory of the Oetenbach nunnery, the so-called Äbtissinnenstuben of the Fraumünster abbey, the last residence of Katharina von Zimmern, thanks to their uninterrupted use and appreciation of the institutions established there, remained in use until a few years before the demolition of the monastic buildings occurred.