An eighth-century Benedictine abbess of Aldeneik in Belgium, who with her sister Saint Harlindis founded and led one of the region’s early convents.

Saint Relindis was a Benedictine abbess in what is now Belgium, who died around 750. With her sister, Saint Harlindis, she founded and led the monastery of Aldeneik near Maaseik, becoming its abbess. The two sisters are remembered together as pioneers of religious life for women in the region, and their community became known for skilled manuscript work and religious craftsmanship, a tradition later associated with their names. Relindis’s life is documented mainly through this founding role and her family relationship to Harlindis.

Quick Facts

• Died: c. 750, at Maaseik (Aldeneik), Belgium
• Venerated as: Abbess, Order of Saint Benedict
• Notable: Co-founder of Aldeneik monastery with her sister, Saint Harlindis

Who Was Saint Relindis van Maaseik?

Saint Relindis was a Benedictine nun and abbess who, together with her sister Saint Harlindis, founded the monastery of Aldeneik near Maaseik in present-day Belgium. She died around the year 750. The sisters are remembered as among the earliest women to establish organized religious life for women in that part of the Low Countries, and Relindis served as abbess of the community she and her sister had built together.

Historical Setting

The eighth century was a formative period for monastic life in the Frankish lands that would become Belgium and the Netherlands, as noble and religious families founded communities that combined prayer, learning, and craft. Female monasteries of this era, often established by sisters or kinswomen acting together, became important centers of literacy and manuscript production, a role that shaped the religious and cultural landscape of the region for centuries afterward.

Why the Church Remembers Saint Relindis van Maaseik

The Church remembers Saint Relindis as a founder and leader of religious life for women, whose partnership with her sister Harlindis established a lasting monastic community at a time when such institutions for women were still relatively rare. Her governance of Aldeneik as abbess reflects a life of practical leadership joined to consecrated prayer.

Canonization and Feast Day

No formal canonisation process is recorded for Saint Relindis, as is typical for saints of the eighth century, long before such processes took their modern form. Her veneration rests on ancient local cult in the Maaseik region, received through the Church’s liturgical memory and sustained by the continued honor paid to the monastery she helped found.

What Catholics Can Learn Today

Relindis and her sister’s shared founding of Aldeneik shows how partnership, not only solitary heroism, can build something that outlasts a single lifetime. For Catholics today, she is a model of collaborative leadership in service of the Church, and of using one’s gifts, administrative as well as spiritual, in God’s service.

A Prayer to Saint Relindis van Maaseik

Saint Relindis, who built a home for prayer and learning alongside your sister, pray for all who labor together to build up the Church. Help us to see collaboration as a gift, not a compromise, and to lead with the same steady faith you brought to Aldeneik. Amen.

Sources

• Butler’s Lives of the Saints
• New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia
• Roman Martyrology, for the joint commemoration of Harlindis and Relindis