St. Lorenz Basilica is a baroque minor Basilica and the former abbey church of the Benedictine Kempten Abbey. A church was built on the site in the 13th century but was burned down in 1478.
Roman Giel of Gielsberg, the Abbot of Kempten, commissioned the master builder Michael Beer from Graubünden to build a new church to serve the parish and monastery. The foundation stone of the Basilica of St. Lawrence was laid on 13 April 1652. This was one of the first large churches built in Germany after the end of the Thirty Years' War.
Michael Beer built the nave, the ground floor of the towers and the choir. He was succeeded by Johann Serro on 24 March 1654. The church was consecrated on 12 May 1748.
In 1803 the monastery was dissolved and the church became a purely parish church. In 1900 the twin towers were finally completed. They were build of concrete which is heavier than the used material before that time. Cracks at the connections to the main building are the result of the completed towers.
In 1969 Pope Paul VI bestowed the honorary title of basilica minor.
References:Saint-Georges de Boscherville Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey. It was founded in about 1113 by Guillaume de Tancarville on the site of an earlier establishment of secular canons and settled by monks from the Abbey of Saint-Evroul. The abbey church made of Caumont stone was erected from 1113 to 1140. The Norman builders aimed to have very well-lit naves and they did this by means of tall, large windows, initially made possible by a wooden ceiling, which prevented uplift, although this was replaced by a Gothic vault in the 13th century. The chapter room was built after the abbey church and dates from the last quarter of the 12th century.
The arrival of the Maurist monks in 1659, after the disasters of the Wars of Religion, helped to get the abbey back on a firmer spiritual, architectural and economic footing. They erected a large monastic building one wing of which fitted tightly around the chapter house (which was otherwise left as it was).