page_title: St. Matthias' Abbey
section_title: First foundation
hierarchical_section_title: St. Matthias' Abbey / History / First foundation
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Sarkophage der Heiligen Eucharius (links), Valerius (rechts) und des Apostels Matthias (ganz hinten) in der Krypta der Basilika St. Matthias in Trier English: Basilika St. Matthias Trier / Germany (crypt): Sarcophagi of St. Eucharius (on the left), St. Valerius (on the right) and Apostel St. Mattias (in the background)
context_page_description: 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.
context_section_description: Monks have lived in the present St. Matthias' Abbey since late antiquity. 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 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.
  The abbey passed through the Reformation almost unscathed, but it was badly affected by wars and looting, and also by conflicts with various bishops or abbots. The last abbot was relieved of his office as early as 1783, years before the actual dissolution of the abbey, and management from then on lay in the hands of the prior.
  When the troubles of the French Revolution spilled over onto German territory, the abbey buildings were requisitioned by the French army, and monks were obliged to leave the abbey, at first with the intention that this was to be a temporary absence, living from 1794 to 1802 in the parish house (Mattheiser Pfarrhaus). In 1802 however the abbey was nationalised and secularised. When the premises were sold off, the local businessman Christoph Philipp Nell acquired the bulk of the main building complex and used it with little alteration for his residence, thus preserving it from the demolition and gross alterations for industrial purposes that befell many other monastic buildings at this period.
  Apart from the main abbey complex there remain, particularly in villages along the Moselle, many farmhouses and estate buildings which formed the abbey's economic basis before secularisation. They are often called "Mattheiser Hof" ("Matthias' farm") or other names making reference to the abbey. An especially large farm of this sort was the Roscheider Hof near the village of Merzlich (now Konz-Karthaus), now the Volkskunde- und Freilichtmuseum Roscheider Hof ("Local History and Open-air Museum, Roscheider Hof"), where the original building is preserved as one of the exhibits.
caption: The tombs of Eucharius and Valerius
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