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Founded: 1230-1254Category: Religious sites in Germany
Historical period: Hohenstaufen Dynasty (Germany)
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Rehna Abbey is a former Benedictine (the 13th century) and Premonstratensian nunnery (until 1552). It was founded between 1230 and 1236. In 1254 the monastery was inaugurated and this year also began the construction of the cloister between church and convent. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the monastery was one of the most important monasteries Mecklenburg. Numerous Lübeck families had their daughters educated there and funded the monastery with donations.
During the Reformation the monastery was dissolved in 1552. From 1576 to the early 18th century it belonged to Duke widows and princesses Anna Sophia of Prussia (until 1591), Sophia of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp (to 1634), Anna Sophie (until 1648) and Juliane Sibylla (to 1761). At the beginning of the 18th century, the remaining buildings were used as offices until 1819. After the Second World War, the abbey was used as a school until 1995.
The late Romanesque brick church have survived from the original monastery, however it was radically altered in the mid-15th century.
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.