The Abbey Church of Otterberg was founded in 1143 by Cistercians as the abbey church of a daughter abbey of the Eberbach monastery. In the 15th century, the monastery slowly declined. In 1504, and in 1525 during the Peasants' War, the monastery was burned and plundered. At the end of the 16th century, the abbey church began to be used simultaneously by the Catholic and Protestant parishes, but not without causing disputes. In 1708, therefore, a separation wall was built between the two spaces. The choir hall with the transept is now used as the Catholic part, the remaining nave as the Protestant part. In 1979, the wall was removed as part of a major renovation, but the structure of the property was not changed.
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.