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The Relics of Christ

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The Relics of Christ The relics of Christ Everyone passing away leaves behind material traces of their life. The existence of a Jewish man, called Jesus of Nazareth, is supported by strong historical evidence. The question therefore is raised: Are the various artifacts associated with his life truly authentic? Apart from this question, the history of relics — authentic or fake — is an amazing, fascinating chapter of Christian history through the centuries, especially the relics of Jesus Christ, which remain the most venerated and famous. Not everyone has the ability to travel and venerate these relics throughout Europe and the Middle East, the geographic areas where they are concentrated. Instead, Our Sunday Visitor offers you a brief presentation of 10 of these holy artifacts, such as the Shroud of Turin, the Crown of Thorns, the Holy Nails and the Holy Coat, which have survived through the present. Read on to take a journey through history and science, investigating the mysteries of many of Jesus’ relics. 1. The Holy Cross Once, Martin Luther said that “one could build a whole house using all the parts of the True Cross scattered around the world,” mocking the Catholic tradition of venerating relics and pilgrimages to places where they were located. Fragments of the True Cross, one of the nails and part of the titulus are found at the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem. This is not true. According to meticulous research carried out in the 19th century, all the known fragments of the Holy Cross amount to less than one-ninth of its original volume. The history of the Holy Cross begins with Constantine the Great, the Roman emperor famous for having granted religious freedom to all Christians in 313. At this time there was a belief, kept alive by the Christians of Jerusalem, that the material evidence of Christ’s crucifixion was buried there. Constantine, the first Christian emperor of Roman history, sent his mother, Helena — who is regarded today as a saint by both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches — to Jerusalem. On September 14, which would become the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, she discovered three wooden crosses and three nails in an old cistern not far from Golgotha, where Christ was crucified. She divided Jesus’ cross into three pieces, to be sent to Rome, Constantinople and Jerusalem. Even the titulus, stating “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,” as stated in St. John’s Gospel, was divided into two pieces. Upon her return to Rome, she converted a part of her house into a chapel, to host the relics she brought to Rome: a fragment of the cross, the half of the titulus and three nails. Today, this is the site of the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, although in 1629 some of the relics were transferred to the newly constructed St. Peter’s Basilica by Pope Urban VIII. The other two parts of the cross mentioned above were divided again into smaller parts, currently spread throughout Europe. In the past it was common to divide a relic into smaller fragments, according to the belief that even the smallest fragment had the same sacred power as the whole relic. In Jerusalem, after St. Helena found the cross, pilgrims were allowed to kiss the piece left there. Beside the relic, they needed to put in place a person as staurophylax (“custodian of the cross”) in order to prevent pilgrims from taking a little piece of the cross with a bite! 2. The Holy Nails How are we to establish which are the true ones, given that there are 36 “holy nails” in Europe, but only three of them nailed Jesus to the cross? Unexpected help came in 1968 from an archaeological discovery near Jerusalem. Four tombs were excavated and found three nails near the body of a young man, crucified supposedly between 6 and 65 A.D. They are rectangular in shape, 16 centimeters long and 0.9 centimeters wide at their thickest point. The comparison suggests that some “holy nails” are not genuine, since some are too long or made of silver. Two of the alleged Holy Nails are still venerated today. Let us take into account the oldest sources, according to whom Helena discovered three nails of Jesus’ cross in Jerusalem. The first one is venerated today in the Roman Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem. The second nail was brought to Constantinople in 1354 by a Venetian merchant, Pietro Torrigiani. Pope Innocent VI was interested in acquiring the precious relics, but his offer was lower than the one made from Siena, by the rector of the Santa Maria Della Scala Hospital. Since the canon law forbade the trade of relics, Torrigiani signed a deed of donation to the hospital, but in reality, they rewarded him very generously “under the table.” The fate of the third Holy Nail of St. Helena is more difficult to clarify. According to Theodoret of Cyrus, a part was embedded in the helmet of Constantine, while another part was melted into his horse’s harness. There are two places now where the emperor’s harness is venerated. The first is in Carpentras, France, the second in Milan, Italy. In 1576, Bishop Charles Borromeo, a leading figure of the Counter- Reformation, carried the relic three times through the streets of Milan, praying for the end of a deadly plague. Since the plague ended, they had no doubt: The holy nail made the miracle. 3. The Longinus Spear According to the legend, the Roman soldier, Longinus — his name as referred to by ancient Christians — was cured of cataracts when he pierced the side of Jesus on the cross and the blood and water flowed out. Longinus was later baptized and martyred. The spearhead of Longinus’ spear resides in the Vatican. Pilgrims reporting from the Holy Land mention his spear up to the eighth century, not later. The history of this relic goes on from Constantinople. At the time of the Fourth Crusade, in 1204, Franks and Venetians invaded Constantinople and stole many relics, but not the spear. The Latin Empire of Constantinople founded by the Crusaders was repeatedly threatened by the Greeks and Bulgarians. Therefore, the ruler, Baldwin II, was forced to sell to King Louis IX of France the spear staff, in order to collect resources to defend his Empire. Two centuries later, Constantinople was invaded again, this time by Ottoman Turks led by Mehmed II, on May 29, 1453. It meant the end of the long history of the Byzantine Empire. In 1492, Sultan Bayerid II proposed an agreement to Pope Innocent VIII: to welcome the sultan’s brother, Cem, a dangerous pretender to the Ottoman throne, to Rome. The agreement was that the brother had to remain in Rome in exchange for the return of the Longinus headspear. The relic arrived in Rome from Ancona, an Italian city on the Adriatic Sea, delivered by two eminent cardinals. Pope Benedict XIV, in the 18th century, had many doubts on its authenticity. He asked the King of France to send the spear’s staff to Rome to verify the authenticity. The two pieces fit together perfectly. 4. The Pillar of Scourging Given the huge number of relevant historical and religious sites in Rome, someone could ignore the small Basilica of Santa Prassede, dating back to 822, decorated with marvelous Eastern-style mosaics, located not far from the famous Marian Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore (St. Mary Major). The Pillar of Scourging is venerated at the Roman Basilica of Santa Prassede. Here you could venerate one of the most relevant relics related to the passion of Christ: the Pillar of Scourging, made of Egyptian marble, whose shape is the same as the architectonic style of the Hellenistic age. There is no evidence that the pillar is the one at which Jesus was beaten and scourged in Pilate’s praetorium; nevertheless, it is very likely. The first mention comes from the journal of Egeria, a pilgrim who visited the Holy Land in the late fourth century, who observed, “Many devotees went to Zion to pray before the pillar at which Jesus was scourged.” It’s worth noting that in this place, Mount Zion, outside Jerusalem’s walls, there was a temple of the Judeo-Christian community. They preserved many Old Testament traditions, beliefs and precepts neglected by other Christians, including the prohibition of any contact with bodily remains within the city walls. Therefore, the pillar did not transgress any rule. In 1009, Caliph Al-Hakim ordered the destruction of the Church of the Apostles, where the pillar had been moved. To avoid destruction, it was brought first to Constantinople, then Rome in 1223, thanks to the papal legate to Constantinople, Cardinal Giovanni Colonna. The rulers of the Latin Emperor gave him the pillar as a gift for Pope Honorius III in order to get his support. The cardinal very happily accepted the gift, since colonna in Italian means “pillar,” and in his crest, there was precisely … a pillar! 5. The Crown of Thorns Modern reconstruction of the Crown of Thorns based on the Shroud of Turin. In 1870, Charles Rohault de Fleury, a French architect, counted 139 thorns throughout all Europe venerated as belonging to Christ’s Crown of Thorns. At least half of them are fake relics on the basis of the studies carried out in Paris, where the true crown has been located for almost 800 years. The hoop of the crown, about 12 centimeters large, is made of Juncus balticus, a plant species typical of the Eastern Mediterranean basin. According to some botanists, in the crown there were no more than 50 or 60 thorns.
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