LITTLE ROCK — When Mother Teresa’s crucifix, rosary, locks of hair, drops of blood and well-worn sandals come to Little Rock on Wednesday, visitors will be able to view some of the newest relics in Christendom.
The oldest go back perhaps 2,000 years.
“From the earliest Christian times there was this desire to be connected to the physical presence of holy people ... to kind of be physically in touch with holy people, holy places, holy sites, holy objects,” said theology professor Timothy Matovina of the University of Notre Dame.
The early church began gathering relics before it ever built monuments.
Before the Christian church had cathedrals, it had martyrs - men and women who were beheaded, burned alive, crucified or devoured by lions because of their allegiance to Jesus and their outlawed faith.
Those who died at the hands of pagan Romans were lauded by fellow Christians as heroes and saints. When possible, the martyrs’ memories and their mortal remains were preserved and venerated by the earliest Christians.
“In the early church, especially in Rome where the catacombs were, the Eucharistic liturgy was celebrated on the graves of the martyrs, on the tombs of the martyrs,” said John Matusiak, managing editor of The Orthodox Church Newspaper.
But the persecution didn’t last forever. The tiny sect grew and, within 300 years or so, it had conquered the Roman Empire.
No longer underground, Christianity became the state religion. Instead of worshipping in homes or gathering in the catacombs, its members were able to build ornate basilicas - sometimes on the site of old Christian burial sites.
And inside these new cathedrals were placed the remains of the martyrs, plus artifacts (some of questionable provenance) from the lives of the saints, martyrs, apostles, biblical heroes and even Jesus Christ.
From the very beginning, some Christians believed that miracles could be linked to these bits of bones, strands of hair or items of clothing, notes Robert Garrity, aCatholic chaplain and adjunct professor of theology at Ave Maria University in Florida.
“Take a look at Acts of the Apos-tles 19:12 where a handkerchief touching St. Paul was said to provide healing for people who were sick,” Garrity says. “And there are other passages as well” - including some in the Old Testament.
In 2 Kings 13, for example, a dead man returns to life after his corpse came in contact with the bones of the prophet Elisha. After the rise of Christianity, sick people sought similar miracles, drawing near to relics and praying for divine healing.
Churches across Europe also claimed to possess pieces of the true cross, fragments from the original crown of thorns, even beverages from the wedding at Cana (where Jesus turned water into wine).
The pious were offered glimpses of what was billed as the manger from Bethlehem, the swaddling clothes of Christ, the lance that piercedhis side and the nails that pierced his hands.
In an age before museums, churches became the repositories for vast collections of art and artifacts. The best collections were in Rome and Constantinople.
Some Christians believed the respect accorded these artifacts as well as religious works of art was excessive - dangerously similar (or identical, they claimed) to idol worship. And for a time, the Byzantine emperors themselves were iconoclasts, destroying paintings of the saints, ornate mosaics, statues, reliquaries (the often ornate display cases housing relics) and even relics themselves, according to some accounts.
In response, after decades of division, church leaders from Rome and Constantinople declared iconoclasm to be a heresy.
At the Second Council of Nicaea, in 787 A.D., bishops from East and West required that all churches should contain relics. To this day, Catholic and Orthodox churches - whether they’re in Budapest or Bentonville - must contain relics.
Over the years, relics were hoarded - and looted by pillaging armies.
The most impressive relics and the churches containing them became popular attractions, helping to launch a new industry.
“There isn’t beach tourism in the Middle Ages, but to have a set of important relics would increase traffic and increase tourism dollars, if you want to use those terms,” said Matovina, the Notre Dame professor. “By the late Middle Ages, there are pilgrimage sites all over Europe.”
During the Fourth Crusade, Christians from the West stormed into Constantinople, in 1204, carting off key relics.
After the Turks seized Constantinople in 1453, many of the Orthodox Church’s remaining relics fell into Muslim hands.
Today, relics purporting to be the forearm of John theBaptist, the sword of King David and the rod of Moses are on display at Istanbul’s Topkapi Palace, along with hairs from the beard of the Prophet Muhammad.
“You find relics in most of the major world religious traditions,” said Peter Manseau, author of Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World’s Holy Dead.
And it’s not only worshippers who have relics. Communists and atheists have them, as well. The embalmed body of Lenin is displayed in Moscow. The mortal remains of Mao Zedong are displayed in Beijing. Closer to home, relics relating to Abraham Lincoln were freely distributed in the wake of his 1865 assassination at Ford’s Theater in Washington.
Today, private collectors and museums own tiny strips of the sheets and pillowcases that soaked up the dying president’s blood.
“Relics are as old as religious tradition - and they’re probably older,” Manseau said.
Protestant leaders have been leery of relics since the dawn of the Reformation.
In his “Treatise on Relics,” John Calvin argued that most of the artifacts were forgeries and that the veneration of relics “is a defilement and an impurity which should never be suffered in the church.”
Protestant skepticism remains. In May, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler condemned the practice. “The veneration of relics, still a part of popular piety among many Roman Catholics worldwide, is a grotesque distortion of biblical piety,” Mohler wrote. “Evangelical Christians observing the veneration of relics by Catholics are rightly horrified by the practice.”
Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox all say that relics should not be worshipped.
“Worship, clearly, is given to God alone,” said Matusiak of The Orthodox Church Newspaper.
But veneration - Catholics and Orthodox say - is acceptable.
“The religious sense of the Christian people has always found expression in various forms of piety surrounding the Church’s sacramental life, such as the veneration of relics, visits to sanctuaries, pilgrimages, processions, the stations of the cross, religious dances, the rosary, medals, etc.,” the Catechism of the Catholic Church states.
Relics on display for one eveningMother Teresa’s relics will be displayed at the Cathedral of St. Andrew, 617 S. Louisiana St., in Little Rock from 5:30-6:30 p.m. Wednesday. After a Mass celebrated by Bishop Anthony B. Taylor at 6:30 p.m., the relics will again be briefly available for viewing.
Religion, Pages 12 on 07/24/2010