St. Matthias' Abbey, Trier

St. Matthias' Abbey is a Benedictine monastery in Trier, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

The abbey church, a Romanesque basilica, is a renowned place of pilgrimage because of the tomb of Saint Matthias the Apostle, after whom the abbey is named, located here since the 12th century, and the only burial of an apostle in Germany and north of the Alps. The abbey was originally named after Saint Eucharius, first Bishop of Trier, whose tomb is in the crypt. The church has been given the status of a basilica minor.

Monks have lived in the present St. Matthias' Abbey since late antiquity. The monastery adopted the Rule of St. Benedict in about 977.

Since the 10th century the bones of the founders of the Archbishopric of Trier, bishops Eucharius and Valerius, have been preserved here.

The bones of the Apostle Matthias were supposedly sent to Trier on the authority of the Empress Helena, mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine I, but the relics were only discovered in 1127 during demolition work on the predecessor of the present church buildings, since which time the abbey has been a major centre of pilgrimage.

Efforts to reform in the wake of the Council of Basle, under Johannes Rode, the Carthusian prior appointed by the bishop, led to spiritual and economic renewal, to the extent that St. Matthias' became an example for other monasteries. The attempt to found a congregation round it came to nothing, however, and St. Matthias' in due course joined the Bursfelde Congregation in 1458.

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