Wieskirche

UNESCO World Heritage Site
Pilgrimage Church of Wies
Name as inscribed on the World Heritage List

Type	Cultural
Criteria	i, iii
Reference	271
UNESCO region	Europe and North America
Inscription history
Inscription	1983 (7th Session)

The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (German: Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann, who lived nearby for the last eleven years of his life. It is located in the foothills of the Alps, in the municipality of Steingaden in the Weilheim-Schongau district, Bavaria, Germany.

It is said that, 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 so Steingaden Abbey decided to commission a separate shrine. Many 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 with frescoes and with 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]

There is a popular belief that the Bavarian government planned to sell or demolish the rococo masterpiece during the secularization of Bavaria at the beginning of the 19th century, and that only protests from the local farmers saved it from destruction. Available sources, however, document that the responsible state commission clearly advocated the continuation of Wies as a pilgrimage site, even in spite of economic objections from the abbot of Steingaden.^[2]

The Wieskirche was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1983 and underwent extensive restoration between 1985 and 1991.

Notes

↑ White, James F. (2003), Roman Catholic Worship: Trent to Today, Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, p. 50, ISBN 0-8146-6194-7
↑ Stutzer, Dietmar; Fink, Alois (1982), Die irdische und die himmlische Wies, Rosenheim: Rosenheimer Verlag, pp. 99–100, ISBN 3-475-52355-8

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Wieskirche.

Coordinates: 47°41′00″N 10°54′00″E / 47.68333°N 10.90000°E / 47.68333; 10.90000

World Heritage Sites in Germany

For official site names, see each article or the List of World Heritage Sites in Germany.

Northern	Fagus Factory in Alfeld Berlin Modernism Housing Estates Museumsinsel (Museum Island), Berlin Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin Town Hall and Roland on the Marketplace of Bremen Mines of Rammelsberg, Historic Town of Goslar and Upper Harz Water Management System Speicherstadt and Kontorhaus District with Chilehaus in Hamburg St. Mary's Cathedral and St. Michael's Church at Hildesheim Hanseatic City of Lübeck Historic Centres of Stralsund and Wismar

Central	Bauhaus and its Sites in Weimar and Dessau Garden Kingdom of Dessau-Wörlitz ~~Dresden Elbe Valley~~ (delisted in 2009) Luther Memorials in Eisleben and Wittenberg Muskauer Park / Park Mużakowski¹ Collegiate Church, Castle, and Old Town of Quedlinburg Wartburg Castle Classical Weimar

Western	Aachen Cathedral Castles of Augustusburg and Falkenlust at Brühl Carolingian Westwork and Civitas Corvey Cologne Cathedral Upper Middle Rhine Valley Speyer Cathedral Roman Monuments, Cathedral of St. Peter and Church of Our Lady in Trier Völklingen Ironworks Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex in Essen

Southern	Abbey and Altenmünster of Lorsch Town of Bamberg Frontiers of the Roman Empire:² Upper Germanic & Rhaetian Limes Maulbronn Monastery Complex Margravial Opera House Bayreuth Old Town of Regensburg with Stadtamhof Monastic Island of Reichenau Pilgrimage Church of Wies Würzburg Residence with the Court Gardens and Residence Square Prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps³

Natural	Ancient Beech Forests⁴ Messel Pit Fossil Site Wadden Sea⁵

¹ Shared with Poland ² Shared with the United Kingdom ³ Shared with Austria, France, Italy, Slovenia and Switzerland ⁴ Shared with Slovakia and Ukraine ⁵ Shared with the Netherlands and Denmark

Authority control	VIAF: 168840188 GND: 4079298-5

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