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Founded: 1860-1863Category: Religious sites in Sweden
Historical period: Union with Norway and Modernization (Sweden)
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There has been a church on this site in Sandby since the 12th century. The current church building, which was completed in 1863 to the designs of J F Åbom, contains some reminders of the parish’s long history. These include the original font, made of Gotland marble, and from the first half of the 13th century. Gustav Lundqvist painted the fine altarpiece which depicts Christ welcoming the little children. An earlier altarpiece, by renowned maker Jonas Bergren, hands on the south wall.
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.