The Maria Schnee pilgrimage church is one of the most important pilgrimage churches in Swabia.
The church has a floor plan in the form of a three-quarter circle. The exterior of the church appears to be a replica of the church in Klosterlechfeld. The northern extension is a three-storey house that used to be a hermit's hermitage. The sacristy is on the ground floor.
Meaning of the name of the church:
The feast of Maria Schnee on August 5 goes back to a dream of a childless Roman couple who had promised the Virgin Mary that they would bequeath their fortune to the Church. In this dream, Mary told the couple to build a church where there would be snow the next day. The following day, a light blanket of snow covered the Esquiline, one of Rome's seven hills. The church of Santa Maria Maggiore was subsequently built on this site.
After the Thirty Years' War, Johannes Herz, a citizen of Markt Rettenbach, came up with the plan to build a chapel in thanks for the salvation from war and plague. Construction began in 1646 and was completed in 1654. It was a wooden structure with a choir, nave and tower and stood on the same site as today's chapel.