Relics
The Orthodox honour the saints to express their love and gratitude to
God, who has "perfected" the saints…To this day the Orthodox have
maintained the liturgical custom of meeting on the day of the saint's death, of
building churches honouring their names, and of paying special respect to their
relics and icons.
Relics of Gregory V the martyred patriarch of
Constantinople in
the Metropolitan Church of Athens
What are Relics?
Relics are the remains of a saint, or a saint's possessions,
such as clothes or vestments or anything that has been in close contact with
the saint.
Orthodox Saints number well over 10,000 and counting, (1) so this can add up
to an astounding number of relics given the Orthodox custom of dismembering
bodies for distribution to the faithful, not to mention the custom of embedding
a relic in each and every consecrated altar in the Orthodox world.
Corfu’s Agios Spyridon, Thessaloniki’s Agios Demetrios, Cephalonia’s Agios Gerasimos,
and Athens’ Agios Gregorios are just a few of the saints whose relics are found
in Greece today.
Theoretically, all relics are equally sanctified, because
all are points of access to the Divine, but early on, the Church
distinguished primary relics, parts of bodies which had suffered martyrdom,
from ‘secondary’ relics, objects valued for their contact with the body of a
saint and as memories of a worldly presence.
Primary relics too came to have a hierarchy of
values, at least to those collecting them. Relics of the Apostles, or of John
the Baptist would be especially valued and anything related to Christ or Mary
would be at the top of the list.
A surprising number of relics relating to
Christ fit this category in spite of the fact that his body is not available:
His foreskin (removed at circumcision), His umbilical cord, His blood (shed on
the cross), His crib, His swaddling clothes, His crown of thorns, the nails
which nailed Him to the cross, and the ne plus ultra of relics, the True Cross
itself. It was upon fragments of the
true cross that Byzantine emperors swore their most solemn oaths and pieces of
it were regularly carried into battle.
A reliquary containing a fragment of the True Cross (one of over a
thousand still believed to be authentic) that found its way to Spain.
Taking
the True Cross as an example, how were such relics authenticated? The story goes that when the emperor
Constantine’s mother excavated in the Holy Land some three hundred years after
the crucifixion, she found three intact crosses on Golgotha. To determine which
one was the True Cross, she placed each one beside a dying woman. The one that
miraculously cured her was the True Cross.
Eleni excavating the True Cross in a ninth century manuscript
The ability of a relic to affect miracle cures was and is its ultimate
provenance.
The custom of revering relics dates back
to the early Christian period when Christianity was proscribed and services
were held in the catacombs and the Eucharist celebrated either over or near the
body of martyred Christians.
An altar in the catacombs on the island of
Milos
(http://www.greekislands.com/milos/home.htm)
When allowed, it became the custom to
build Churches over the tombs of venerated martyrs. The bones or ashes of these
martyrs would be gathered by the faithful and a shrine erected. The earliest known
example of a shrine for martyr’s relics might
well be that of Saint Ignatius whose large bones (left after the Lions ate the
small ones) were collected in 107 and carried to his native city of Antioch
where they were kept as a treasure “by
the grace which was in the martyr”.
Martyrdom of Saint Ignatius (www.antiochan.com)
The
custom of embedding a relic in the altar of all churches harkens back to this
era. The relic is a reminder that the Church was built on the blood of the
martyrs and their faith in the Lord. The practice of building churches over
martyrs' shrines became so entrenched that by 401 the Council of Carthage
decreed that all churches not
honouring the relics of saints should be destroyed.
Today, a church whose altar has not been consecrated by a relic is not
regarded as a proper environment for the Divine Liturgy. An outdoor liturgy covers this requirement by
having a tiny relic sewn into the antimension, a cloth which is then placed
over a temporary altar.
So
especially hallowed were these martyrs’ shrines that many wished to be buried as near to the relics as
possible; the idea seemed to be that proximity to the saint would be helpful
when the bodies of the faithful were raised to join their souls at the Second
Coming. If that were not possible, everyone at least wanted to have a small
relic to keep close at hand.
The emperor Constantine rode into battle
with nails from the True Cross entwined in his horse’s bridle. His famous column
honouring the founding of Constantinople in 330 was said to contain, among
other things, a portion of the True Cross,
the crosses of the two thieves, and, the palladion
of Athena. This wooden statue of the goddess had been the guardian first of
Troy and then Rome. Aside from raising the relics of the new religion to the
same symbolic status of city guardians as Athena, it may show that early on, at
least, Constantine was prepared to hedge his theological bets!
then.... now......
It is a fact of life that the state or the very rich
acquired the most revered relics, placing them in elaborately jeweled
reliquaries, and the poor had to be content with sanctified dust from the tomb
of a martyr, myrrh exuded from a relic’s body, or an object which had been
placed beside the relic and had become sanctified by proximity. Even such
humble relics were housed in as rich a reliquary as the owner could afford...
all photos here from Wiki Commons
The more valuable a relic, the more status was
acquired by the owner whether that was a monastery, a church, or a palace. Relics
became commodities. Theft, trade, and deception were soon added to the mix.
As time passed, the definition of martyr (witness) included
virtually any righteous Old Testament figure, the relatives of anyone involved
in the central Christian story, as well as revered bishops and holy men.
The Imperial Relic Collection
He
had the relics of Saint Timothy, traveling companion of Saint Paul, and Saint
Andrew, the ‘first chosen disciple of Christ’, translated from Patras to
Constantinople in 336 (or 356 depending on the source). No one has recorded how
the locals in Patras felt about that. It is hard to see this initial choice as
random since each saint translated was the closest counterpart to Peter and
Paul it was possible to acquire.
That Rome’s
possession of the relics of Peter and Paul was a sore point is evidenced in the
sixth century when the emperor Justinian (of Hagia Sophia fame) and later Maurice made repeated efforts to wangle at least some body parts of Peter and Paul from the pope in
Rome. He flatly refused to break up the bodies (the west was more fastidious in
this respect – at least when the body politic was also involved) but he did
offer a few filings from the chains that had bound Saint Peter.
Saint
Andrew and Saint Timothy had been buried with honours in the Church of the Holy
Apostles but that alone was not enough to ensure the city’s safety or prestige,
so Saint Luke was translated from what is now Greece and the head of John the
Baptist followed from the eastern part of the empire not long after. These and
many more Translation Ceremonies
took place and they were huge affairs of state with liturgies, celebrations,
processions, and displays of the relics, all orchestrated by the emperor and empress as well as the
patriarch.
In
his article Sacred Relics and Imperial Ceremonies at the Great Palace of Constantinople (3) Holger Klein makes a compelling case for the
theory that the cult of relics in Constantinople became tantamount to an imperial cult. In the golden age of the
empire, imperial wealth was used to obtain relics and these relics were
increasingly housed in elaborate chapels – reliquaries themselves - inside the palace complex reinforcing the
emperor’s role as the guardian of Christendom. Relics became part of the
national treasure and an important relic was far more precious than the gold
and jewels that surrounded it.
Icons vs Relics
Although the rationale for venerating icons and relics is similar, the fate
of relics diverged from that of icons during the great iconoclastic debate. Icons
were forbidden; relics were pretty much left alone except by the most unruly
fanatics. Unlike icons, relics were not ‘images’
of the Divine and possibly they had become so closely attached to the emperor’s mystical source of
power that they would have been virtually immune from attack on that basis
alone.
1204 and After
What is miraculous
to me about the veneration of relics, especially the ones safe-guarding the God
guarded imperial city, is that people never seemed to lose faith in their
miraculous properties even as the empire succumbed more and more to the attacks
of both barbarian hordes and western opportunists. You might think that the sack of
Constantinople in 1204 by the Crusaders and the subsequent wholesale theft of
the city’s relics by just about every western country that existed at the time
would have lessened their inherent lustre but it did not. The relics were
avidly welcomed by the home cities of warriors returning with their loot. Some
of the greatest cathedrals in Europe ( St Chapelle, Amiens to name two) were
built with the express purpose of housing important relics stolen from
Constantinople.
Wiki Commons
Sainte Chapelle in Paris: new home
of the stolen Crown of Thorns
Here is a contemporary account of the palace treasures written by a French
soldier:
“When the city was captured [...] and the palaces were taken over, [...]
they found in them riches more than a great deal. [...] And the palace of
Bukoleon was very rich [...] and in it there were fully thirty chapels, great
and small, and there was one of them which was called the Holy Chapel, which
was so rich and noble that there was not a hinge nor a band nor any other part
[...] that was not all of silver, and there was no column that was not of
jasper or porphyry or some other rich precious stone. [And] within this chapel
were found many rich relics: [...] two
pieces of the True Cross as large as the leg of a man [...], and the iron of the lance with which Our
Lord had his side pierced, and two of
the nails which were driven through his hands and feet; and one found there
in a crystal phial quite a little of his
blood and [...] the tunic which he
wore [...] when they led him to Mount Calvary. And one found there also the
blessed crown with which he was
crowned [...] and the robe of Our Lady
and so many other rich relics that I could not recount them to you.
These purloined relics were as revered by the towns possessing them as they
had been in Constantinople. In fact so many
instruments of the passion, vials of Mary's
milk, and relics of the apostles flooded Europe after 1204 that in 1274 the
veneration of relics was forbidden without papal
approval.
Errors occurred. Three western religious houses claimed to have the head of
John the Baptist for example. This list can be expanded by any reader taking the
time to google ‘fake relics’ and the
name of any Christian city involved in the Crusades.
When the Greeks did manage to take back their city in 1251, the loss of the
relics lessened the emperor’s prestige and completely undermined his role as
protector of Christendom’s greatest treasures. The empire never recovered although subsequent
emperors did try to use some of the remaining relics as bargaining chips in
diplomatic efforts to seek allies even as the Turks were tightening their hold
on the city.
Relics in
Today’s World
Today relics are as important in the Orthodox
world as ever. Orthodoxy missed the Reformation and has never felt the need for
any soul searching about relics. After all,
there is no need to defend what has never been attacked. The practice of Translation is alive and
well in the Orthodox world and Greece has proved willing to share with others
relics of her local saints. (4)
The Roman Catholic Church,
unlike the Orthodox, had to defend relics against the Protestant onslaught, and
has traditionally been less likely to offer bits of saint piecemeal (although that rule does not apply to articles
of clothing or objects placed temporarily beside relics in order to sanctify
them by proximity). While certainly not discouraging relic veneration, it has
made a few tiny shuffling steps away from it, or at least its excesses. Since
the 1980s it no longer requires a relic in each consecrated altar.
The idea of bits and pieces of
saints being broken up, scattered and revered is a tough one to sell to Protestants.
They do not pray to saints, believing that all the faithful will become saints.
They would agree that the body deserves respect as the temple of the soul, but a
decent burial is the extent of any veneration. (5)
Relics in Today’s Greece
The rituals, processions and
celebrations surrounding the relics of saints in Greece today may no longer be
imperial but they are still grand and not merely an ecclesiastical concern. The
state is still very much involved. No politician would miss being present on the
special days of relic veneration in his or her constituency.
Relics of Saint Spyridon in procession, Corfu
Questioning any aspect of Orthodoxy is still politically dangerous in Greece. A candidate for the new center-liberal party in
this year’s Euro-elections was forced to resign from the party after suggesting
that the pomp and circumstance surrounding the Holy Fire sent by God to the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem each
year on Easter Saturday and then brought by plane to Greece where it is given
the full honours of a visiting head of state was a useless expense, simply out
of sync with the reality of crisis ridden Greece. The media frenzy surrounding
that suggestion was amazing and almost no one who valued his or her own
political future was publicly prepared to defend his position. So it is not very likely that any politician will
seriously question the value of relics and the ceremonies surrounding them any
time soon.
Suffice it to say that even
without the increasing influx of tourists from Orthodox countries, the many
churches and monasteries housing relics would
still be full of Greek pilgrims on the name days of the saints whose relics
have been acquired, relics which are still revered and believed to be as capable
of working miracles now as they were in the past.
Footnotes
(1)There are more than 10,000 canonized Roman
Catholic saints. Orthodox numbers would be even higher but difficult to
pinpoint exactly since there is no fixed process of canonization such as there
is in the west.
(2). In an empire such as the Byzantine Empire,
separating a political element from a religious one is not easy. But pretending
there was no such division is equally unsatisfactory.
(4 A rib of Aegina’s Saint
Nectarios was gifted by the Metropolitan of Aegina, Spetses, and Hydra to a
church in California in 1979.
(5) As an interesting footnote… I remember reading one of
John Donne’s sermons in which he went to great lengths to assure his concerned
congregation that God was fully capable of assembling the limbs of the faithful
which may have been lost on some foreign battlefield. Of course, this would be a doodle compared to
the gathering of the dispersed bones or ashes of martyred Orthodox saints. In
view of this, it is hard to understand the ban on cremation by the Greek
Church.
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