St Matthias' Abbey

This sensation attracted the pilgrims – and the basilica, which was inaugurated on 13 January 1148, was naturally named after St Matthias, though it also retained its role as abbey church and burial church of Sts Eucharius and Valerius. And its architecture is as varied as this role. It’s not just those who approach the western façade via the large square outside that will be overwhelmed by the mix of baroque, Romanesque and classicist forms. Even those who stand in the long, initially seemingly puritan interior of the three-naved basilica and look up won’t be able to get enough of the early-16th-century ‘diamond-star vault’, which is built of stone yet appears to grow upwards like a plant. It is this very mix of styles that attests to the vibrancy of a church that stands on an old Roman gravesite and earns its reputation from those graves – vibrancy as an active monastic church and place of daily worship.

A must for: Pilgrims. Architecture enthusiasts. Crypt-goers and peace-seekers. But also for builders, carpenters, smiths, butchers, swineherds, tailors and confectioners, new school-starters and those plagued by chickenpox or whooping cough: St Matthias is the patron saint for all of these.

Apostle grave: 40%
Magical vault: 40%
Monastic silence: 60%


PSSSST! THE INSIDER TIP:
In the 1960s, the coffin of the widow Albana, who is said to have granted the first bishops of Trier – Sts Eucharius and Valerius – refuge, and in whose house Trier’s Christian community is then said to have gathered, was found in a tomb under St Matthias’ Abbey. Inside the coffin was the skeleton of an approximately 40-year-old man and a woman about ten years older, who had initially clearly outlived her husband and then subsequently had herself laid to rest with him in the sarcophagus. Sts Eucharius and Valerius themselves are later said to have been buried here – and today their coffins lie in the crypt of St Matthias’ Abbey.