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St. John's Abbey in the Thurtal was a Benedictine monastery originally established in the mid-12th century. The oldest written record of it is dated October 4, 1152, when Pope Eugene III took the monastery into his protection. The pope confirmed the monastery's possessions and free election of its abbot and Vogt.
On October 24, 1178, Pope Alexander III confirmed the abbey's extended possessions. In 1227/1228, the king became Vogt of the abbey. In December 1231, Emperor Frederick II issued a Golden Bull confirming his obligations as Vogt of the abbey.
The abbey also frequently bought land in the territory which is now the principality of Liechtenstein, most notably the prominent Red House in Vaduz, which it purchased in 1525 from the heirs of the medieval owners, the Vaisli family.
The abbey's high point was during the 14th century. It survived the Reformation, but lost its independence in 1555, when it became a priory of St. Gall's Abbey.
In 1626 the buildings were severely damaged by fire, and the monks were afflicted by a mysterious illness and the community moved along the valley to a new location at Sidwald near Nesslau, since then known as Neu St. Johann. On the site of the old monastery a parish church was built, with a priest's house.
The new monastery buildings in Nesslau, which were completed by 1680, were in a magnificent Rococo style. Toggenburg was an area of mixed denominations, and the priory was an instrument of the Counter-Reformation under the leadership of the Prince-Abbots of St. Gallen.
The priory was dissolved in 1805. The former monastic church became the Roman Catholic parish church of the parish of Neu St. Johann. The remaining buildings now accommodate a remedial educational centre known as the Johanneum.
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.