Tradition has it that this was built when the statue of the Madonna was discovered in the sea after the infields had tried unsuccessfully to carry it off during the Turkish raids of the mid-sixteenth century. The church was built prior to 1418, as evidenced by a written on the fresco above the altar. The church is documented especially from 1583 onwards, when there was an order of brothers here. Records of the apostolic visit of 1612 refer to the church as 'recently built', with a confessional and a burial ground for sailors. It has two doors and a bell tower above. It has been established that the sacristy and an oil panting date from 1742, and records state that the church was built with contributions from seafarers.By 1875, in addition to the bell tower with its two bells, the organ, the pulpit and the clock, there was a marble sanctuary with a brass gate and altar rails, as well as a framed statue. In 1905, a wooden statue and a third door had been added. A few years later, in 1913, this church and others were closed, when they were occupies by soldiers sheltering from torrential rain.
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.