It was built between 1214 and 1219 AD as the Romanesque style church of the then Premonstratensian Kloster Rüti, an abbey that was founded in 1206 by the House of Regensberg and suppressed in 1525 as part of the Reformation in Zürich.

The church is situated in the center of the municipality of Rüti on a small rocky plateau near the Jona River at the site of the former abbey which is called Amthof respectively Klosterhof.

Abbot Markus Wyler initiated the Last Judgement fresco on the chancel arch, donated by Baron Bernhard Gradner and Veronika von Starckenberg.

It is decorated with Israelite kings, prophets, priests, and the parable of the ten virgins which adorn the chancel arch, and eight women from the early days of Christianity, represented with their symbols: Dorothea with the basket of roses, Mary Magdalene with the ointments bush, Appolonia with forceps and tooth, Ursula with arrow, Catherine with wheel and sword, Barbora tower, chalice and host, Margareta with cross and dragons and Helena in search of the cross of Christ.

[1] The Episcopal collection of the Gallen Abbey includes the main altar of the monastery church, probably a late work by Hans Leu der Ältere around 1500.

The nave was lowered to the ground level of the original monastery church in order to improve the view of the liturgical center with the communion table and the Gothic choir arch.

In 1286, for financial reason, the Countess Elisabeth von Rapperswil had to sell her farm estate in Oberdürnten including the associated rights (in particular the lower courts) to the Rüti Abbey.

[3] The convent was generously endowed with money and goods by the aristocratic families in northeastern Switzerland, enabling it to buy the rights to parish churches and a large number of additional estates.

Rüti was an important stage point along the Jakobsweg (Way of St. James) leading via Rapperswil and the wooden bridge at the Seedamm lake crossing to the Einsiedeln Abbey.

[7][8] Elisabeth Countess of Toggenburg spent her last days in the Rüti Abbey, and she was mentioned on 20 June 1442 that she was retreated there ("unser wesen gentzlich in dasselbe gotzhus got zuo dienende gezogen haben") and elected her tomb to be with her husband after her death.

[9] On 11 June 1443 marauding troops of the Old Swiss Confederacy devastated the monastery and desecrated the bodies of the nobles, including Count Friedrich VII who they held responsible for the war with Zürich, and the scavengers pelted with the remains like schoolboys with snowballs.

In addition, there was a large number of members of noble families and knights living nearby, although there were never found burials of the founders of the abbey, the House of Regensberg.

Most of the burials respectively ledger stones are lost or destroyed – particularly the ones of the Toggenburg family and those of the nobilities that were deconsecrated by the Old Swiss Confederacy troops in June 1443 – or were re-used for buildings etc.

But, memoria for the noble families remain largely intact, even after the Reformation in Zürich until the demolition of the Toggenburgerkapelle vault when the church partially had to rebuild in 1770.