The present invention relates to a method for sterilizing a chromatography material, more particularly microporous polymer membranes, to a chromatography material which has been sterilized by the method according to the invention, to the use of the chromatography material sterilized according to the invention for the chromatographic removal of contaminants from a fluid, and to a closed chromatographic filtration system comprising a chromatography material sterilized according to the invention.