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 which time the abbey has been a major centre of pilgrimage. Efforts to reform in the wake of the
Council of Basel, 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. In 1433, at the request of Duke
Otto of Brunswick, John Dederoth, having effected notable reforms at Clus Abbey, turned his attention to the extremely neglected and dilapidated Bursfelde Abbey. He was able to obtain two exemplary monks from St. Matthias' Abbey to maintain his reformed discipline there. In 1458 St. Matthias' joined the
Bursfelde Congregation. The eastern part of the crypt was added around 1500. 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. == Second foundation ==