Abbey Sainte-Marie du Rivet may be founded in the late 8th century. There are some remains of the 9th century fortifications and the abbey church was built in the 13th century. The community is affiliated to the Cistercian order in 1189: at this date, the monastery already bears the name of Sainte-Marie.
The abbey was ravaged during the French Wars of Religion and in 1702 there was only one monk left. In 1938 the abbey came back to life, with a community of nuns. Today, 14 nuns live in the Rivet Abbey. They are Trappistines, that is to say they belong to the Cistercian order of Strict Observance, which is an order stemming from the Cistercians of the Common Observance, themselves from the Benedictines.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.