St. Matthias' Abbey
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 minor basilica. First foundation Monks have lived in the present St. Matthias' Abbey since late antiquity. Cyrillus of Trier built an oratory here in the second half of the 5th century and gave the monks a rule. The monastery adopted the Rule of Saint 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