Body of St. Aurelius, St. George’s Minster, Dinkelsbuhl, Germany
Built in the late 15th-century Gothic style to designs by Nikolaus Eseler. It is the largest hall church (one built without aisles) in the country.
News article (Google translated):
Dinkelsbühl – Terrible desecration of a saint: In Dinkelsbühl, strangers tore the martyr Aurelius out of his shrine and stole his leg.
On Monday afternoon, the pastor of St. Georg Minster in Dinkelsbühl discovered the devastation. As the previous investigations by the State Criminal Police Office showed, unknown persons had broken into the church and had torn the martyr Aurelius, who was lying in state in a glass shrine, from his final resting place. The perpetrator or perpetrators had smashed the glass pane. A marbled apple was secured at the crime scene.
The martyr had been dragged from the shrine and left on a pedestal in front of it. The skeleton’s entire left leg was broken off and stolen. The leg, like the entire skeleton, was covered with metal ornaments, in which replicas of precious stones were embedded. According to the police, these are not objects of great value. For laypeople, however, this is not obvious.
The bones of the martyr, who had been beheaded under Emperor Nero, were transported from Rome to Dinkelsbühl in 1747. The one laid out in the Minster was completely restored in 1978.
