Bishop carries St. Sophia's body from Rome on his shoulders

ESCHAU, Alsace, October 1, 2026 AD — Bishop Remigius of Strasbourg buried the body of Saint Sophia on an island in Alsace in 777 AD. He laid it in the abbey he had built there for nuns. He had carried the body there from Rome, and he wrote in his will that he had done it. By then St. Sophia had been dead for more than six hundred years.

Twelve, ten and nine

Tradition holds that St. Sophia was a Christian widow, born in Italy. She had three daughters, St. Faith, St. Hope and St. Charity. The girls were twelve, ten and nine. St. Sophia brought them up to love Christ, and the four of them did not hide their faith.

An official reported the family to the Emperor Hadrian, and the emperor ordered them brought to Rome. The emperor wanted the girls to offer a sacrifice to the goddess Artemis. He could have them tortured and killed if they refused.

Before they were taken to the emperor, the girls prayed for the strength not to be afraid of torture and death. The mother and her daughters came before the emperor together. Everyone in the court was amazed at how calm they were. The four of them looked as if they had been brought to a festival. The emperor called the sisters up one at a time, and each refused.

The emperor ordered them tortured, and St. Sophia was forced to watch. The tortures didn’t kill the girls, because the Lord kept them alive. St. Sophia stayed brave and told her daughters to endure the tortures for Christ. Then all three girls were beheaded, and they were joyful as they went to die.

The emperor let St. Sophia take the bodies, because he wanted to make her suffer more. She laid her daughters in coffins and loaded the coffins on a wagon. She drove out past the edge of the city and buried them on a high hill. She sat beside the graves for three days and died there. Christians buried her next to her daughters.

A gift from the Pope

About 770 AD Bishop Remigius built his abbey for nuns on Eschau, an island in Alsace. At Rome, the tomb of St. Sophia and her daughters was in a crypt beneath a church. Pilgrims visited it for a long time. Remigius went to Rome as a pilgrim, and there the Pope gave him St. Sophia’s body.

Remigius wrote afterwards that he carried the body from Rome to Alsace in person, super humeros meos (on my shoulders). The people who served him travelled with him, and they brought the body to Alsace with great honour. The body reached Eschau on May 10, 777 AD. Remigius buried it in the church he had built on the island and made St. Sophia the patron saint of the abbey.

Ten months later Remigius made his will. In it he told the Blessed Virgin Mary: tibi dono corpus sanctae Sophiae (to you I give the body of St. Sophia). Remigius was buried at Eschau.

St. Sophia’s relics rest in the church at Eschau. Later Tradition at Eschau held that the relics of her three daughters had come from Rome with hers. About 1350 AD the relics of St. Sophia and her three daughters were placed together in one sarcophagus.