In 1143, the number of pilgrims to the relics was so considerable that abbess Chunegundis (Cunigunde) initiated the construction of a hospital on the ancient Roman road near the abbey.

The church was again damaged in 1298, during a military campaign of Conrad of Lichtenberg against Adolf, King of the Romans, and the Romanesque cloister was destroyed.

In 1526, bishop Wilhelm von Hohnstein [fr] dismantled the abbey as a consequence of Protestant Reform and the German Peasants' War.

[5][6][8] In the 1930s, a tradition of Russian Orthodox pilgrimage to the church was established, notably by the visit of archimandrite Andronik [ru] in 1937.

The following year, 1938, bishop Charles Ruch [fr] brought "new" relics of St Sophia from Rome, which had been authenticated by Cardinal Francesco Marchetti Selvaggiani.

The inside displays several Gothic and Baroque statues of saints as well as Renaissance sculptures such as a head of John the Baptist on a platter, and ledger stones from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.

[9] The choir window reuses a Gothic stained glass panel originally from the former Dominican church of Strasbourg, destroyed in 1870.