The Second Rome
Christian Trier in Germany
by Christoph Pitsch
Trier is an ancient German city near the Luxembourg and French borders. At the 2002 inauguration Mass of then-Bishop Marx at Trier,* Bishop Kamphaus of Limburg brought something special with him – ‘the crozier of St. Peter.’ The metropolitan Archbishop of Cologne ceremonially presented this to Bishop Marx “as a visible symbol of the communion of the church of Trier to St. Peter and his successors.“
The Legend of ‘St. Peter’s Crozier’
f course, Peter lived hundreds of years before croziers became
ecclesiastical paraphernalia, but the secret behind this crozier is a fascinating legend about the foundation of the Church in Trier (Roman ‘Treverus’—from which the Christian name ‘Trevor’ comes).
According to this legend, St. Eucharius and St. Valerius, disciples of St. Peter, together with St. Maternus, left Rome to preach the Gospel north of the Alps. (Other legends say they were sent as priest, deacon and subdeacon respectively.)
Upon reaching present-day Alsace-Lorraine, Maternus died from exhaustion. Eucharius and Valerius, discouraged, returned to Rome. There, St. Peter gave them his crosier and sent them to Maternus again, where they resurrected him using St. Peter’s crosier. Then, Eucharius and Valerius proceeded to Trier to found a Christian community and Maternus did the same in Cologne.
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Photos: Harry Stevens
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