The Banz monastery church in Bad Staffelstein, Germany, holds a sight that has startled visitors for generations: four complete skeletons, their bones wrapped in silk and encrusted with jewels, lying in glass coffin-like cabinets. The relics — named Vincenzius, Valerius, Benedictus, and Felix Benedictus — are among the so-called catacomb saints, remains unearthed from Roman catacombs and brought north as objects of veneration.
Church custodian Anita Gottschlich admitted the display can be unsettling. “It’s actually a little creepy,” she said, noting the empty eye sockets seem to stare back at onlookers. Yet she said older visitors who came as children still search for the Holy Bodies, drawn by childhood memories.
The practice began in the late Middle Ages, when bones discovered in unmarked Roman catacombs were assumed to be martyrs of the early Christian church. “At the time, the church simply designated them all as saints,” said Catholic priest Walter Ries, who oversees several parishes around Bad Staffelstein. “And, of course, in many countries, including Germany, people wanted to have such holy remains, such relics, simply because this enhanced the status of their own church or monastery and perhaps turned it into a place of pilgrimage.”
The abbots of Banz sent emissaries to Rome in 1680 and again in 1745, and the four skeletons they obtained were decorated by nuns in nearby Bamberg. The timing was no accident. Europe, including Bavaria, was still recovering from the Thirty Years’ War, which had killed millions through battle, famine, and disease. “That was a terrible time,” Ries said. “And so people tried to open the gates of heaven through the Baroque. That’s why everything was designed so beautifully. It was an escape from the present, which was often so terrible. That’s also why these eerie skeletons were so beautifully draped.”
The relics were meant to inspire, not frighten. According to historian Günter Dippold, who has researched the catacomb saints, the elaborate adornment served a theological purpose. “It is therefore intended to show the faithful who view it what we will look like after the resurrection, after being raised from the dead, when we no longer have our earthly bodies but rather glorified ones,” he said.
For most of the year, wooden panels depicting the skeletons cover the display cases. The covers are removed only on special feasts such as All Saints’ Day, giving believers a glimpse of the glorified bodies they hoped to share one day.
Veneration of the catacomb saints has faded. The monastery itself was dissolved in 1803, and today only the church remains active, serving a congregation of 211. Ries acknowledged the shift: “Back then, these relics were very important, but today they really aren’t anymore.” Still, the four jewel-draped skeletons continue to draw the curious and the faithful, a silent reminder of a Baroque world in which art and faith sought to console a suffering populace.