From Fr. Gerardo StCioffari, o.p. Nicholas director of the Centro Studi Nicolaiani News 22 October 16, 2011 BASILICA PONTIFICIA DI S. NIC A communication channel to keep in touch with St Nicholas’ Friends around the world 22 From Fr Gerardo Cioffari, o.p., director of the July 15, 2012 St Nicholas Research Center in Bari ST NICHOLAS’ RELICS IN THE WORLD HOW IS IT POSSIBLE ? LL BUT FROM BARI … NEVER 40 WAS GIVEN A BONE FRAGMENT ! FRAGMENT ! SPAIN. VALENCIA. A relic of St Nicholas is venerated in the Parish Church of St Nicholas and S.Pedro Martir. In fact, the word “relic” has more than one In these last years there has been an meaning. In the sense of “bone” hardly could incredible proliferation of miraculous relics be true, because never in history from Bari of St Nicholas and “translations” (temporary was donated a bone/relic. It only could be borrowings) from a city to another. Such an true if we refer to the Myron/manna or to attention to our Saint makes us glad, but the wood of the box in which Barian sailors probably is better avoiding exaggerations brought the Saint’s relics to Bari. and above all confusions. 1 RELICS Scholars of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches are well aware of the abuses and Relic derives from the Latin word reliquiae, excessive forms of this cult. In this that is “the remnants” (the Greek λειψανα, atmosphere of more or less colourful Russian мощи). Besides the Passion illegality took place the multiplication of instruments, that in the Christian antiquity doubtful relics. They had no scruples about had a special veneration (because of their recognizing as body of a martyr or of a link with the Cross, symbol of Christianity), confessor any human remnant accidentally very early we find examples of Christians found in the neighbourhood of a church or who preserved bones or objects touched by a in the catacombs of Rome (Dictionnaire de Martyr of their community. Théologie Catholique, 13, 2351; G. Baudot, Dictionnaire, V, 1178). The veneration of relics is very well attested in the Christian antiquity (already from the FOR THE PROTESTANTS: IDOLATRY 2nd century with the martyr Polykarp), both in the eastern (St Basil, St Gregory of Nazianzus) and in the western Church (St Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Gregory the Great). All these Fathers were very clear about the meaning of “veneration”, absolutely excluding any confusion with adoration. For example St Jerome, answering to the objections of Vigilantius, wrote: We honour the relics of the martyrs in order to adore the One for whom they sacrificed their lives. We honour the servants in a way that the honour reserved to them goes to the glory of Jean Calvin (1509-1564) their Lord (Ep. CIX, 2). In his The glory of the Martyrs Gregory of Tours (VI c.) speaks about the miracles that took place near their Criticisms were expressed already in ancient tombs (PL LXXI). The second Council of times with Augustine, who reproached some Nicaea (787) declared: Our Saviour left us monks for selling relics. In the Middle Ages the relics that continue causing many Guibert of Nogent criticized especially the benefices to sick people… . Therefore, those relics linked to Jesus, like the “milk-tooth”, who hold in contempt or throw away the the “Prepuce” or the “umbilicus”. relics of Martyrs, have to be considered excommunicated (Mansi, Concil. 13, col. With the protestant Reformation (Huss, 380 b.). Wicleff, Luther, Calvin) criticism against the veneration of the relics hit not only abuses After the triumph of Orthodoxy over the and exaggerations, but the cult itself as such. Iconoclasm (843), there was no serious In particular, John Calvin wrote A Treatise opposition to the cult of relics (besides a few on the relics in which he ridiculed the many sects), although here and there voices arose relics spread everywhere, like the wood of against abuses. Excesses in the cult of relics the cross (that could form a forest), or the were reached at the times of the Crusades, innumerable thorns of the crown, the 14 when both from the Holy Land and from nails of the cross, two heads of the same Constantinople arrived in Western Europe a Saint, and many other relics (text could be great amount of relics that no one could found in “Jean Calvin The Online Books check whether they were authentic or not. Pages”). His Treatise alternates satire to 2 doctrinal remarks. An example is the one this, thinking about God’s gift of walking about the milk of the Virgin: With regard to where Jesus walked. In the same way, the the milk there is not perhaps a town, a many mistakes and scandals referred in the convent, or nunnery where it is not shown Bible have no influence on my faith, in large or small quantities. Indeed had the considering them as the price the Word of Virgin been a wet-nurse her whole life, or a God had to suffer to reach us through dairy, she could not have produced more human means. than is shown as hers in various parts. How they obtained all this milk they do not say, Back to history. The sharp Protestant and it is superfluous here to remark that criticism, instead of pushing the Catholic there is no foundation in the Gospels for Church to correct the undeniable abuses, these foolish and blasphemous extra- brought her to defend the relics beyond the vagances (p. 249). good common sense. To contrast the Protestant iconoclasm, the Church decided While speaking of the wooden fragments of to affirm strongly the legitimacy of the the Cross: If we were to collect all these veneration of relics. Roman popes neglected pieces of the true cross exhibited in various keeping into account the right things that parts, they would form a whole ship’s cargo were in the protestant criticisms, and did (p. 233). not take any step to avoid the veneration of so many strange and often ridiculous relics. About St Michael’s sword that he had seen in Carcassonne he says: St Michael’s falchion which looks like a child’s dagger... It is indeed a blasphemy, under a garb of devotion, against God and his angels. ... But if [Satan] was conquered by the sword, it would at least have been one of a different size and calibre than the toy to which I have alluded (p. 253). FOR CATHOLICS AND ORTHODOX: AN HELP FOR OUR FAITH Probably, if Calvin would have approached the question of the relics with a little The sacred Thorn humour, would have taken it as an amount in the “Chapel of the Relics” of extravagances instead of blasphemies and in St Nicholas’ Basilica in Bari. idolatry. With his criterion he should have For many centuries it was a source thrown away even the Holy Scripture, that of meditation on Christ’s Passion. contains no less extravagances, mistakes and scandals, than the relics phenomenon. As a reaction to the Protestant sharp criticism the Council of Trento declared: When I was in pilgrimage in the Holy Land, Those who affirm that is due to the relics no I smiled hearing about unbelievable relics, veneration or honour whatsoever, or that but I wasn’t bothered in any way because of 3 there is no use for the faithful in venerating 2009, p. 246). But he produced no evidence. the relics, or that in vain is celebrated the Documented, on the contrary, is in Rome a memory of the Saints in order to obtain relic in the year 755 in the church of St Angel their help, are absolutely condemned, the in Pescheria. Another is documented by Church always condemned them and Raban Maurus in Fulda (Germany) in the condemns them even today (Trento, Sess, year 818. XXV; Denz. 984). To break St Nicholas’ renown, the Arab The common fight against Roman primacy admiral Chumeid, in September of the year did not help Protestants in convincing the 808, left the island of Rhodes and went to Ecumenical Patriarch Jeremiah II in 1576 to Myra to destroy the Saint’s tomb. He made a accept Protestant principles. Orthodoxy on mistake, says Theophanes in his this point is in perfect harmony with the Chronography, and not only broke a Catholic Church (included abuses and different tomb but, when back to the sea, his exaggerations). fleet sunk. The emperor Basil seems to have been interested to the relics of St Nicholas. In the Catholic Church (as well as in the The first Turkish attack against Myra took Orthodox) coexist two needs: the rigorous place in 1034, but the source doesn’t say research to arrive to certainty about the anything about the Church of the Saint. authenticity of the relic (the Bollandist methodology of the Légendes Hagiogra- If we consider this background together with phiques of Hyppolite Delehaye) and the the spreading of relics in the West following respect for tradition united to the growth of the sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders piety. Naturally, this second aspect (together (1204), we may easily assume that some with the circumstance that the authenticity relics were brought to Constantinople soon certificate is within the faculty of the local after the end of Iconoclasm (843). bishops) has caused a great amount of abuses and relics proliferations that often oversteps the border of superstition. The veneration of a St Nicholas relic in Georgievsk (Russia) ST NICHOLAS RELICS ….. BEFORE THE TRANSLATION The martyrion, that is the church outside of Myra in which the body of the revered bishop was buried, became very soon a pilgrims shrine.