Saint Hildegard’s Feast Day at Eibingen
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Every detail of this pilgrimage’s calendar bends around today. September 17 is the Feast Day of Saint Hildegard, marking her death in 1179, and it’s the one fixed point the entire itinerary is built to reach. Hildegard groups from across Germany — and from around the world — converge on Rüdesheim-Eibingen alongside Vatican officials to honor her at the Wallfahrtskirche St. Hildegard, the pilgrimage church that holds her shrine.
The morning brings an outdoor mass held in German, followed by a vegetarian community lunch in the church courtyard. Then comes the day’s central act: the ornate Hildegard reliquary is carried out and processed through the streets of the village, a tradition that has repeated itself, in some form, for centuries. In the afternoon the group makes its way up the hill to the Benedictine Abbey of St. Hildegard — still an active community of nuns — for time in the gardens, the book and gift shop, and a glass of wine in the café before returning to Bad Kreuznach.
It’s worth pausing on what this day actually is: not a reenactment, not a tourist spectacle, but a living observance that has continued unbroken since Hildegard’s own community first marked her death. To stand in that procession is to stand inside something considerably older than any of us.
Hildegard died on this day in 1179 — which puts her 850th anniversary in 2029, three years from now. Registration for the September 2026 pilgrimage is closed, but we’re already thinking about how to mark it well. Join the waitlist to hear about future journeys first.