Directory
Relics of the saints of the undivided Church, relics of the Lord’s Passion and of the Mother of God, ancient monasteries — including those now kept in Catholic and Anglican churches. Choose a country.
Check access arrangements on the church’s website before travelling.
Cologne
A golden reliquary of the 12th–13th centuries behind the high altar. The relics were translated from Milan in 1164. The cathedral is open daily.
Aachen
The robe of the Mother of God, the swaddling clothes of the Christ Child, the cloth from the head of Saint John the Forerunner and the loincloth of the Lord. Exposition every seven years (Heiligtumsfahrt, next in 2028).
Trier
The oldest cathedral in Germany. The relic is kept in a special chapel and is rarely exposed for veneration (most recently in 2012).
Fulda
Enlightener of the German lands († 754). The tomb is in the crypt beneath the cathedral’s high altar.
Augsburg
Saint Afra was burned for Christ around 304, in the persecution of Diocletian. Her relics rest in a late-antique stone sarcophagus in the lower church of the basilica; nearby is the tomb of Saint Ulrich, Bishop of Augsburg († 973).
Bad Säckingen
Saint Fridolin (6th–7th c.), an Irish missionary, founded a monastery on a Rhine island around which the town grew. His relics can be seen in a glass-sided silver shrine in a chapel of the minster; on the Sunday after 6 March the shrine is carried in procession through the town (a custom attested since 1347).
Cologne
The late-Roman oval rotunda of the 4th century was raised over the burial place of Saint Gereon and his companions, Christian soldiers of the Theban Legion executed at Cologne around 300. Their relics rest in a sarcophagus in the confessio beneath the crypt altar.
Cologne
The church stands on an ancient cemetery where, by tradition, Saint Ursula and the virgins martyred with her at Cologne were buried. Saint Ursula’s shrine stands at the high altar, and the “Golden Chamber” holds hundreds of reliquaries, its walls patterned with the martyrs’ bones.
Cologne
Relics of the Great Martyr and Healer Panteleimon were brought from Constantinople by Archbishop Gero in 971; relics of the Unmercenaries Cosmas and Damian are also venerated here. The church holds the tomb of the Byzantine princess Theophanu († 991), wife of Emperor Otto II, who brought the veneration of Saint Nicholas to Germany.
Darmstadt
The Church of Saint Mary Magdalene was built in 1897–1899 by the holy Royal Martyrs Tsar Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra (born Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt) as a place of prayer during their visits to her homeland. Darmstadt is also the birthplace of the holy New Martyr Grand Duchess Elizabeth. An active ROCOR church.
Eichstätt
Saint Walburga († 779), Abbess of Heidenheim, was a kinswoman of Saint Boniface. For about a thousand years a liquid has gathered in winter beneath the stone of her tomb in the crypt — “Walburga oil”, which the nuns give to pilgrims. Her brother, Saint Willibald, first Bishop of Eichstätt, rests in the town’s cathedral.
Essen-Werden
Saint Liudger († 809), enlightener of the Frisians and Saxons and a pupil of Alcuin, chose his own burial place by the monastery he had founded at Werden. His shrine is in the oldest surviving ring crypt in northern Germany (c. 830–840).
Freising
Saint Corbinian († c. 730), first Bishop of Freising, was one of the enlighteners of Bavaria. His relics are kept in a 19th-century shrine in the Romanesque crypt of the cathedral.
Limburg an der Lahn
A Byzantine imperial reliquary made in Constantinople around 964, holding particles of the Life-giving Cross arranged as a patriarchal cross. Taken by crusaders in 1204, it is now kept in the Diocesan Museum and Cathedral Treasury of Limburg.
Munich
Alexander Schmorell, an Orthodox member of the “White Rose” student resistance, was executed by the Nazis on 13 July 1943; the Russian Church Abroad glorified him as a martyr in 2012. He is buried in the cemetery by Stadelheim prison, opposite the Cathedral of the Holy New Martyrs of Russia. Feast: 13 July.
Paderborn
The relics of Saint Liborius, Bishop of Le Mans († c. 397) and friend of Saint Martin of Tours, were translated to Paderborn in 836 and rest in a shrine beneath the crypt altar. Every year in late July the Libori festival includes a procession with the saint’s silver shrine.
Prüm
The chief relic of the ancient abbey of Prüm: sandals that, by tradition, were worn by the Lord Jesus Christ, already mentioned in King Pepin’s charter of 762 as a papal gift. The shrine is shown for veneration only on special feasts; the church also holds the tomb of Emperor Lothair I.
Regensburg
Beneath the high altar, reached from the Carolingian ring crypt (c. 780), rest the relics of the Hieromartyr Emmeram († c. 652), enlightener of Bavaria; the western crypt holds the shrine of Saint Wolfgang of Regensburg († 994).
Reichenau
The monastery on this island in Lake Constance was founded by Saint Pirmin in 724. The Minster of St Mary and St Mark keeps the shrine of the relics of Mark the Evangelist (brought in the 9th century) and a Holy Blood reliquary; processions are held on 25 April and on the Monday after Trinity Sunday. The island’s three ancient churches are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Trier
The crypt holds the tomb of Saint Paulinus, Bishop of Trier († 358), a companion of Saint Athanasius the Great who died in exile for the faith of Nicaea. By tradition, martyrs of the Theban Legion who suffered at Trier also rest here. The crypt is open on feast days and by arrangement.
Trier
The only apostle’s tomb north of the Alps: the relics of Saint Matthias, chosen in place of Judas, have been venerated here since the 12th century (by tradition brought from Jerusalem at the behest of Saint Helen). The crypt holds the sarcophagi of the first bishops of Trier, Saints Eucharius and Valerius.
Weingarten
The relic of the Blood of Christ, gathered by tradition by the centurion Longinus at the Cross, has been kept here since the 11th century; it is displayed behind glass at the centre of the basilica’s altar. Each year on the Friday after Ascension the “Blutritt” takes place — one of Europe’s largest mounted processions.
Würzburg
These Irish missionaries, enlighteners of Franconia, were martyred at Würzburg around 689. The Neumünster church stands over their burial place; their relics rest in a shrine in the west crypt. In early July the city keeps the Kilian week with a pilgrimage.
Xanten
The cathedral rises over a 4th-century martyrs’ grave; since 1128 the relics of Saint Victor, a soldier of the Theban Legion, have been kept in a jewelled shrine on the high altar. The town’s very name derives from the Latin “ad sanctos” — “at the saints”.
