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Founded: 1240Category: Religious sites in Germany
Historical period: Hohenstaufen Dynasty (Germany)
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Pielenhofen Abbey for Cistercian nuns, dedicated to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, was founded in 1240 by the lords of Hohenfels and Ehrenfels. In 1542, during the Reformation in Pfalz-Neuburg, it was placed under secular administration. In 1655 it was subordinated to Kaisheim Abbey as a sub-priory.
During the secularisation of Bavaria in 1803 the priory was dissolved; the nuns' church became a parish church. In 1806 Carmelite nuns from Munich and Neuburg an der Donau moved into the premises as a joint nunnery. In 1838 the Visitandines, also known as Salesian Sisters, bought it, and established a girls' school here. In 1981 the Pielenhofen Primary School, a boarding school of the Regensburg Cathedral Choir, replaced the earlier school. In 2010 the five remaining nuns moved to the community of the Visitandines at Zangberg.
The Baroque church has two towers of three storeys, two aisles and a transept, under a cupola in the centre. The church contains a late Baroque high altar with eight columns. The ceiling with a depiction of the Holy Trinity is by Jacob Carl Stauder. The pictures of the twelve apostles are by Johann Gebhard of Prüfening Abbey.
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.