Holy Blood Festival — Island Holiday Reichenau

Holy Blood Festival — The Relic and Its History

The Holy Blood Festival is the highest island holiday of the Minster Island Reichenau in Lake Constance. At its center is the Holy Blood Relic — a Byzantine silver-gilt reliquary from the 9th century, which, according to minster chronicles, arrived in Reichenau in the year 925 and has been counted among the most important relics of the Lake Constance region since the Middle Ages. After centuries of rather reserved veneration, the relic was publicly displayed again in 1738 by the Prince-Bishop of Constance, Johann Franz von Stauffenberg — since then, the annual Holy Blood Festival has been celebrated.

When and Where

The festival traditionally falls on the Monday after Trinity Sunday. In 2026, this will be on June 16 (with Vespers on the eve, Sunday, June 15). The venue is the Minster of St. Mary and Mark, the former minster church in the island village of Mittelzell. The Minster is part of the UNESCO World Heritage site "Minster Island Reichenau," whose architectural ensemble — Minster, Parish Church of St. Peter and Paul (Niederzell), Collegiate Church of St. George (Oberzell) — documents the medieval monastic culture of Central Europe.

What You Will Experience

The festival follows an old, fixed schedule. On Sunday, June 15, at 6:30 PM, the solemn Vespers take place in the Minster — the liturgical prelude. On Monday, June 16, at 9 AM, the High Mass follows. In the afternoon, the Holy Blood Celebration with the actual relic veneration is held: the relic is presented in a Baroque monstrance from 1746 and carried through the nave. The program is rounded off by the concert of the Reichenau Civic Band, which forms the musical framework for the festival day.

The UNESCO World Heritage Island

Reichenau, with its approximately 4.3 square kilometers and 5,300 inhabitants, is the largest island in Lake Constance. Since 2000, the Minster Island has been a UNESCO World Heritage site — one of Germany's few spiritual world heritage ensembles. In the early Middle Ages, it was one of the most important monastic centers in Central Europe, with a scriptorium tradition whose manuscript illumination reached its peak in the Reichenau school. The Holy Blood Festival makes this past immediately tangible again for one day.

A Different Type of Festival

If you are expecting a Volksfest or a market, this is not the place. The Holy Blood Festival is a religious festival day — liturgy, relic veneration, church music — embedded in the rhythm of an island village that draws its identity from the minster. But precisely because of this, the visit is worthwhile: here you can experience a living form of medieval piety, long lost elsewhere, within the framework of a UNESCO World Heritage ensemble that should interest any Lake Constance traveler anyway.