Elaborately decorated skeletons in Catholic churches across Bavaria take some visitors by surprise

BAD STAFFELSTEIN, Germany (AP) — It is a sight that has sent shivers down the spines of many visitors: four complete skeletons draped in silk and brocade, adorned with precious stones, filigree gold, silver and lace that have been on display for centuries at the Catholic monastery church of Banz in southern Germany.

The skeletons — known as Vincenzius, Valerius, Benedictus and Felix Benedictus — are the remains of so-called catacomb saints that were brought to the Benedictine monastery near the Bavarian town of Bad Staffelstein from Rome in the late 17th and 18th century.

“It’s actually a little creepy,” whispered church custodian Anita Gottschlich as she looked at one of the skeletons. It seemed to be staring right back at her through its hollow eye sockets.

"I notice that when older people come here who visited as children, they always look for the Holy Bodies, because they can still remember them,” she added, noting the enduring fascination the skeletons hold for people of all ages.

While they may seem unfamiliar or even disturbing to some visitors, catacomb saints — or Holy Bodies — can still be found in many Baroque Catholic churches and monasteries across Bavaria.

The skeletons, often presented in glass coffin-like cabinets, are also a familiar sight in churches in neighboring Austria, Switzerland, Czechia, and in Italy.

Holy Bodies are remains found in Roman catacombs in the Middle Ages

Legend has it that these relics are the remains of martyrs from the early days of Christianity in Rome that were discovered in the 16th century in unmarked graves in the city's catacombs.

“At the time, the church simply designated them all as saints,” said Catholic priest Walter Ries. "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.”

Ries ministers to the congregation of 211 members that belongs to the monastery church. It's a far cry from the golden age of the monastery, which was founded by Benedictine monks in 1070 and flourished for hundreds of years until it was dissolved in 1803. Nowadays, only the church is still actively in use; the monastery is home to a political foundation.

“A great deal has changed over the course of the centuries," the priest said. "Back then, these relics were very important, but today they really aren’t anymore.”

Catacomb saints were supposed to help believers deal with misery

The veneration of the catacomb saints during the late 17th and 18th centuries came at a time when vast stretches of Europe, including Bavaria, were still reeling from the Thirty Years’ War. It began as a religious struggle between Catholics and Protestants and led to an estimated 4 to 8 million deaths from the effects of battle, famine or disease.

“That was a terrible time," said Ries. "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 and depicted as lifelike as possible.”

The abbots of the Banz monastery and the church, which is ostentatiously adorned with lots of gold, cherubs and paintings in the Baroque style, sent emissaries to Rome in 1680 and again in 1745, who successfully brought home the four skeletons which were then decorated by nuns in the nearby town of Bamberg.

For the faithful, a glimpse of what they'd look like after resurrection

To ensure that viewing the Holy Bodies was an exceptional experience, they were and are still kept out of sight for most of the year by attaching wooden panels depicting the respective skeletons to the front of the display cases. On special occasions, such as All Saints’ Day, the covers are taken off and the Holy Bodies are shown to the believers.

In general, the elaborate decoration "is not meant to show the dead body of a saint, but rather to show his glorified body," said Günter Dippold, a historian who has been researching the catacomb saints and the Banz monastery.

"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.”

---

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.