The pilgrimage church of
Wies (German:
Wieskirche) is an oval
rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by
Dominikus Zimmermann, who spent the last eleven years of his life in a nearby dwelling. It is located in the foothills of the
Alps, the
Steingaden municipality of the
Weilheim-Schongau district,
Bavaria,
Germany. In 1738 tears were seen on a dilapidated wooden figure of the Scourged Saviour. This miracle resulted in a
pilgrimage rush to see the sculpture. In 1740 a small chapel was built to house the statue, but it was soon realized that the building would be too small for the number of pilgrims it attracted, and thus
Steingaden Abbey decided to commission a separate shrine. Many people who have prayed in front of the statue of Jesus on the altar have claimed that people have been miraculously cured of their diseases, which has made this church even more of a pilgrimage site.
Construction took place between 1745 and 1754, and the interior was decorated in stuccowork in the tradition of the
Wessobrunner School. "Everything was done throughout the church to make the supernatural visible. Sculpture and murals combined to unleash the divine in visible form"
[1].
A popular myth claims that the Bavarian state had planned to sell or demolish the rococo masterpiece during
Secularization at the beginning of the 19th century, and that only protests from the local farmers saved this jewel of rococo architecture from destruction. Available sources however document that the state commission in charge clearly advocated the continuation of Wies as a pilgrimage site, in spite even of economic objections from the Steingaden abbot.
[2] The
Wieskirche was added to the
UNESCO World Heritage List in 1983 and underwent massive restoration in 1985-91.
From Wikipedia.
