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Founded: 1550Category: Palaces, manors and town halls in Finland
Historical period: Reformation (Finland)
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The first record of Suitia (Svidja) is from the year 1420. First known owner was Björn Ragvaldsson, the judge in the Raasepori. After him Fleming family started to use Suitia as their secondary residence. The third owner, Erik Fleming was a remarkable Councilor of State of Sweden. He fought succesfully against Danish army and drove them away from Finland in 1523. After the war Erik Fleming lived in Suitia and extended lands and improved the manor. The present grey stone manor was completed by him about 1550.
Flemings lived in Suitia near 250 years. Their era ended up in 1730, when the Russians had demolished Suitia badly in the Great Northern War. Since it has been owned by several families. It was restored to the late medieval outfit in the beginning of the 20th century by August Wrede af Elimä.
Only battle in Suitia was fought in 1918, when the unit of white army defended it against red guards. The government of Finland reclaimed Suitia in 1934. Nowadays it’s rent to Helsinki University.
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.