Altfrid - Death and After

Death and After

The place of Altfrid's death is not known, although the date is recorded by Abbot Altbert of Lobbes as the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, i.e., 15 August 874. He was buried, according to his wishes, in the church of Essen Abbey.

After his death Altfrid was particularly venerated at his tomb in Essen. Around the year 1000 miracles were reported at his grave, which greatly increased the veneration, and the effects of a supposedly healing spring close to the church were also ascribed to his intercession. After a serious fire in the church in the 13th century a Gothic stone sarcophagus was obtained for his bones. Altfrid's feast day - which in Essen was celebrated on 16 August, rather than on 15 August - was the most festive in the abbey's yearly calendar.

Nevertheless Altfrid was not a canonised saint, and when the abbey was secularised in 1803 his veneration fell off, only to revive during the Kulturkampf at the end of the century. After the foundation of the Bishopric of Essen in 1958 the first bishop asked Rome to confirm the celebration of Altfrid's feast day as an official church festival, a request which was granted in 1965.