For Oberammergau, 1984 is a jubilee year. Three hundred and fifty years have passed since the inhabitants of the parish made the vow, before Christ on the Cross, to perform the play of His suffering and death. In the confusion of the Thirty Year War, more and more people were dying of the plague. In this time of great distress the "Six" and the "Twelve" vowed, on behalf of the whole parish, "henceforward to give the tragedy of the Passion every ten years."
 
The Chronicle reports that from that time no one died of the plague. Whether the feared disease suddenly ended cannot be proved; in any case, the epidemic was checked. One year later, in 1634, the promise was fulfilled for the first time and since then it has been kept faithfully for three and a half centuries. The solemn promise is the origin of the Passion Play and this origin remains the measure and also the only satisfactory justification for the bold venture of representing the suffering and death of the Lord on the stage. Similar plays were performed in many villages and markets until they died out, victims of a period of enlightenment and rationalism. The Oberammergau play is one of the few which have survived into our own time. The people of Oberammergau always fought tenaciously for their Passion Play. After several alterations over the centuries (1750 “Passio Nova” by Father Ferdinand Rosner), in 1811 and 1815 the text was given the form which it substantially has today by Father Othmar Weis, of the Benedictine order. To accompany it the Oberammergau teacher Rochus Dealer composed the simple and impressive Passion music.