The shrine is a reliquary holding relics venerated as those of the Magi, and it has stood behind the high altar since 1948. Visiting hours are morning until late afternoon daily (last entry shortly before closing) and early to mid-afternoon on Sundays and Church holidays. Tickets are sold online and at the Central Ticket Office at Roncalliplatz 2, open daily from morning until late afternoon. People with a severe disability also enter free.
No ticket is needed for worship. Masses are celebrated several times each morning and again in the early evening on weekdays, and several times through the morning, at midday and again in the early evening on Sundays; confessions are heard Monday to Friday in the early morning and on Saturday in the morning and again in the afternoon. The pilgrim's own occasion is the Three Kings pilgrimage, held each year around September 27, the cathedral's consecration day. In 2026 it ran from September 23 to 27, and after each service a procession went into the inner choir and passed beneath the shrine. Times and prices were checked on October 10, 2026.
The relics came to Cologne in 1164, when Archbishop Rainald von Dassel received them from Emperor Frederick Barbarossa after the subjection of Milan. They made the city one of the pilgrim centers of medieval Europe, and the cathedral says they were a decisive reason for the Gothic building begun in 1248. Whether the bones are those of the wise men of Matthew's Gospel cannot be shown. The cathedral's own account notes that Scripture gives neither their number nor the title of kings, that the traditional names appear only around the year 500, and that parts of the story are legend. Pilgrims venerate them as a sign pointing to the Child the Magi came to adore.