absolved his school

studied theology in Leuven

Came to Cologne as co-adjutor to help his uncle, prince-bishop Ferdinand von Bavaria, govern the Electorate. After his death he became archbishop and elecotor of Cologne, prince-bishop of Liege, prince-bishop of Hildesheim and prince-abbot of the principality of Stavelot-Malmédy. He was strongly influenced by his minister Wilhelm Egon von Fürstenberg, the architect of the French alliance of Cologne in the French-Dutch war of 1672 and the attack on the Republic, which was very much against the wishes of the inhabitants of Cologne, and his brother Franz von Fürstenberg. After initial successes in the eastern part of The Netherlands by Maximilian and his comrade in arms Bernard von Galen, bishop of Munster, the two bishops backed down, when Elector Frederic William of Brandenburg and his general Raimondo Montecuccoli approched from Halberstadt and the Holy Roman emperor declared himself on the Dutch side and entered the war. Maximilian fled to Cologne and took refuge in the Carthusian monastery of Sankt Pantaleon, where he dedicated himself to his chemical studies. On 11 May 1674 he signed a peace-treaty with the Republic, in which there was a secret clause forbidding the Fürstenberg-brothers to ever enter in his service again (Wilhelm Egon was a prisioner of the Austrians anyway at the time). When Fürstenberg was elected his successor as bishop of Cologne in 1688 with French support, the Emperor blocked his nomination and put Johann Clemens von Bavaria in his place. With the Glorious Revolution in England in 1688 the balance of power in Europe was further drastically changed in the favour of the German Empire and the protestant North, putting an end to French power on the Rhine.

Maximilian was named bishop of Munster in 1683, although Pope Innocent XI refused to confirm this nomination.