Traditions, which were only recorded in the 18th century, suggest that the church at Altaussee (dialectally "Altenaussee") was built towards the end of the 12th century. It was not until about a hundred years later that it is explicitly attested in the complete Urbar of Albrecht I.
Another tradition says that it is older than St. Paul's Church in Bad Aussee and a former parish church. In fact, it had parochial rights long before the establishment of its own pastoral office: the Aussee parish order of 1483 presupposes the right of burial, news from the 17th and 18th centuries mention a baptismal certificate and the administration of the Easter sacraments. The Gothic sacrament house testifies to the keeping of the Eucharist.
The documentary records begin in 1433, the year 1434 can be seen as a building inscription on the west side next to the present main portal.
The patrocinium of St. Aegidius also points to its origin in the 12th century, from which most of the St. Aegidius churches in the country originate and in which the documents about salt extraction begin with the donation of two salt pans to the Cistercian monastery Rein by Margrave Ottokar in 1147.
The old parish rights applied to a precisely delimited district, the church services were provided by the parish of Aussee, which has been attested since 1301. It was not until 1770 that Empress Maria Theresa endowed a vicariate of her own, which in some respects still remained dependent on the mother parish. This only slowly changed when the vicariate became an independent parish in 1892. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)