Relics (Religion)

Various relics ascribed to have been in physical contact with Jesus have been evaluated for the presence of blood, including the Tunic of Argenteuil, the Sudarium of Oviedo, and most famously, the Shroud of Turin. Congruence was reported for certain bloodstain patterns that overlap between relics, suggesting that they may have been associated with the same person. Interestingly, in all cases the blood type was found to be AB, which has also been described for certain Eucharistic miracles. Here, we discuss the theological and scientific significance of shared blood type and comment on the scientific validity of these findings.

Nineteenth-century philologist and Biblical critic William Robertson Smith famously concluded that the sacred status of holy places derives not from their intrinsic nature but from their social character. Building upon this insight, Mecca and Eden uses Islamic exegetical and legal texts to analyze the rituals and objects associated with the sanctuary at Mecca.

Integrating Islamic examples into the comparative study of religion, Brannon Wheeler shows how the treatment of rituals, relics, and territory is related to the more general mythological depiction of the origins of Islamic civilization. Along the way, Wheeler considers the contrast between Mecca and Eden in Muslim rituals, the dispersal and collection of relics of the prophet Muhammad, their relationship to the sanctuary at Mecca, and long tombs associated with the gigantic size of certain prophets mentioned in the Quran.

L’Église catholique semble avoir depuis longtemps laissé de côté le terrain de la réflexion théologique sur les reliques. Le sujet suscite pourtant un intérêt nouveau, tant parmi les fidèles que dans les milieux scientifiques et juridiques. La relique apparaît aujourd’hui au carrefour de nombreuses problématiques.

Until 1993 there were conducted first excavations in what promised to be the site of one of the most important buildings of Petra, the stunning capital of the Nabataean kingdom. Its construction, whose initiation century BC, several changes, reconstructions and landslides along its more than five hundred years of operation. But despite this still unknown for certain functions for which it was designed and that, regardless of the construction elements, materials have been located just still less inscriptions that shed some light on a mystery that will try here exhibit various theories that enable closer to resolution.

c) Le cronache di Santa Cecilia. Un monastero femminile a Roma in età moderna, (n. 5 of the book series “La memoria restituita – Fonti per la storia delle donne”), Rome: Viella 2009.

The book includes the transcription of the Chronicles of the Monastery of St. Cecilia in Trastevere in Rome by Alessia Lirosi (pages 91-310) but also a wide essay by Alessia Lirosi (pages 31-90) and a Foreword by Professor Elena Brambilla of Università Statale di Milano (pages 9-29).

The Introduction to this book is available here: https://www.academia.edu/34095644/Introduction_to_Materiality_and_the_Study_of_Religion_The_Body_of_St_Cuthbert.pdf

Material culture has emerged in recent decades as a significant theoretical concern for the study of religion. This book contributes to and evaluates this material turn, presenting thirteen chapters of new empirical research and theoretical reflection from some of the leading international scholars of material religion. Following a model for material analysis proposed in the first chapter by David Morgan, the contributors trace the life cycle of religious materiality through three phases: the production of religious objects, their classification as religious (or non-religious), and their circulation and use in material culture.

The chapters in this volume consider how objects become and cease to be sacred, how materiality can be used to contest access to public space and resources, and how religion is embodied and performed by individuals in their everyday lives. Contributors discuss the significance of the materiality of religion across different religious traditions and diverse geographical regions, paying close attention to gender, age, ethnicity, memory and politics. The volume closes with an afterword by Manuel Vásquez.

This paper analyzes some tales of the genre named furta sacra, written in Italy during the Middle Ages. After proposing a definition that can describe the specific nature of this genre within the broader framework of the category of translationes, the focus is on the cast of characters. In particular, this essay takes into consideration the writing strategies and the narrative functions linked to the key players of the furtum: the costumer and the thief, the helper and the tomb keeper, the opponent and the antagonist, the saint, the robbed community, and the community of the adventus. The goal of this paper is to reflect on the writing mechanisms of the hagiographer, particularly related to the confirmation of God's intervention in the translation, the authenticity of the relics, and the presence of the saint in his new 'home'.

M. PAPASIDERO, Il genere dei furta sacra: aspetti letterari e funzioni comunicative del testo agiografico, in «Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia» 2 (2017), pp. 379-410 ( numero della rivista: http://storiadellachiesainitalia.vitaepensiero.it/)

Stupa is the India's oldest object of veneration in the architectural form. Stupa and Buddhism are synonyms of each other. Oldest Known stupas are of Buddhist religion. The construction of its shape is inspired from nature itself e.g bulbulakaar, uplakaar and dhanyakaar. This is a solid structured platform in which the body relics of Buddha and his disciples were kept. Initially the stupas of mud were constructed over the bodily remains of Buddha after his Mahaparinirvana. Thereafter, the Mauryan Emperor Asoka constructed numerous stupas made of bricks all over India. During the Sungas and period that followed after the stupas were beautifully adorned by stones that covered the stupas. The remains of this stupa have been obtained from different parts of India namely Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab, etc., and also from Pakistan and Afghanistan.

«L'Antonio eremita che vive solo nel deserto è lo stesso Antonio circondato di fedeli che invocano la guarigione, l'Antonio accompagnato da un maialetto dei dipinti trecenteschi è ancora l'Antonio dei santini, circondato dagli animali da stalla e da cortile, l'Antonio che cura i malati di fuoco sacro è l'Antonio che protegge il bestiame dalle malattie e la casa del contadino dagli incendi»: queste sono solo alcune delle sfaccettature della figura di sant'Antonio abate e del culto a lui tributato nel bacino mediterraneo nel corso dei secoli.

Attraverso testi e immagini Laura Fenelli ricostruisce una storia iniziata nel IV secolo dopo Cristo che vede l'asceta trasformarsi da santo eremita e poi taumaturgo a santo contadino e protettore degli animali.

Emergono in queste pagine «i meccanismi attraverso i quali si produce una devozione e un ordine religioso si innesta, talea floridissima, su un culto già radicato da secoli, e lo plasma, lo modifica, lo influenza a tal punto da renderlo, a prima vista, quasi irriconoscibile. Quello che la storia e le rappresentazioni dell'anacoreta della Tebaide, Antonio, dimostrano con chiarezza è il complicato processo attraverso il quale anche dalle immagini, costruite per specifiche esigenze di devozione, a memoria di attività economiche e terapeutiche, nascono nuovi testi e nuove leggende, pronte, ancora una volta, a dar luogo a innumerevoli raffigurazioni, in un continuo processo biunivoco di vasi perennemente comunicanti tra loro».

From Winston Black in The Medieval Review 15.06.24...

'In the concluding essay, "The Bright Side of the Knife: Dismemberment in Medieval Europe and the Modern Imagination," Lila Yawn clearly takes the most chances and has the most fun in exploring the topic of medieval wounds and wounding. After a review of graphic and supposedly "medieval" dismemberments in modern movies and literature, such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, or Pulp Fiction, Yawn poses the simple question of "how medieval cutting up living bodies really was" (218). In response, she gives a whirlwind tour of nearly two millennia of images and descriptions of amputation, dismemberment, fragmentation, and mutilation from Cicero to Thomas Jefferson. In so doing she demonstrates, as many medieval apologists have already noted, that there is no greater amount or degree of dismemberment in the Middle Ages than before or after, but what leads moderns to equate "medieval" with "dismemberment" is the medieval tendency to celebrate dismemberment and put severed body parts on display, be they of the criminal or of the saint.'

The Medieval Review 15.06.24
Kirkham, Anne, and Cordelia Warr, eds. Wounds in the Middle Ages. The History of Medicine in Context. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2014. pp. xvi, 254. $124.95 (hardback). ISBN: 9781409465690 (hardback).
Reviewed by: Winston Black, Assumption College. black@assumption.edu
https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/tmr/article/view/19219/25339

British art historian Thomas de Wesselow, trained at Courtauld, claims that it was the image on the Turin Shroud that prompted Jesus' disciples to believe in the Resurrection. While appreciating the author's study of the relic, the review points out why exactly his point of view is wrong.

Th e article attempts to examine the use of holy relics during military campaigns of Byzantium in the 10th and 11th century, based on various byzantine literary sources, but also on some epigraphic evidence. Th e examined issues in this study were less aff ected in the historiography. The emergence of holy relics on the battlefi eld implies an immense impact on the Christian military forces.The presented article center on a complex phenomenon, which combine on the battlefield both psychological and religious matters. A tradition at the zenith of Byzantium.

L’autore affronta il tema della diffusione del culto di Santa Rosalia in Liguria durante il XVII secolo attraverso alcuni manufatti di argenteria palermitana ed inedite fonti d’archivio. Nello specifico sono presi in esame il busto reliquiario custodito nella chiesa di Santa Caterina di Bonassola e l’inedita urna-reliquiario della Basilica dei Santi Gervasio e Protasio di Rapallo.

The author deals with the theme of the spread of the cult of Saint Rosalia in Liguria during the seventeenth century through some examples of Palermo silverware and unpublished archival documents. Specifically, he examines the reliquary bust kept in the church of Santa Caterina di Bonassola and the unknown reliquary urn of the Basilica of Santi Gervasio and Protasio in Rapallo.


Nota: impaginazione dell'autore (03.2020).
L'articolo è leggibile online sul sito della rivista dell’Osservatorio per le Arti Decorative in Italia “Maria Accascina” (n. 19/Giugno 2019).
ISSN 2038-4394

I miracoli arrivano all'improvviso, come un fulmine a ciel sereno. La liquefazione del sangue di san Gennaro si ripete invece da secoli in occorrenze precise. «Nessuna legge naturale è in grado di spiegare un fenomeno che si verifichi soltanto in date liturgicamente significative» è stato detto. Eppure de Ceglia dimostra che nel Medioevo il sangue di san Gennaro era inteso come una sostanza semplicemente instabile e ricostruisce le vicende che hanno conferito alle sue liquefazioni l'euritmia che le rende cosí celebri. «I capricci non piacciono a nessuno. Davanti a comportamenti refrattari a ogni norma, all'inizio l'entusiasmo è incontenibile, poi i fedeli si stancano di un oggetto che, senza una chiara ragione, ora è in un modo ora in un altro, cosí lo abbandonano smorzandone gli slanci vitali. Ecco perché quel sangue non avrebbe potuto godere a lungo della libertà di gorgogliare come e quando desiderasse, trovandosi invece nella condizione di dover acquisire una forma: un modo di manifestarsi, cioè, cosí peculiare da renderlo unico nell'orbe cristiano».

La liquefazione periodica del sangue di san Gennaro non è ufficialmente riconosciuta come miracolosa dalla Chiesa cattolica, che piú cautamente ora parla di prodigio. Ma il fenomeno è stato per secoli chiamato miracolo in testi liturgici approvati dall'autorità ecclesiastica e in discorsi di vescovi, cardinali, papi e santi. L'Inquisizione ha inoltre sottoposto a formali processi coloro che lo hanno attribuito a cause naturali. La questione del riconoscimento ufficiale, se ha un senso per gli ultimi cinquant'anni, ne ha dunque tanto meno quanto piú ci si spinga indietro nel tempo. Perché quel mutare in determinate circostanze fu di fatto considerato un miracolo ed è questo ciò che interessa allo storico. Come si può però far storia naturale di qualcosa che per definizione supera l'ordine del creato? La ricostruzione che qui si abbozza non si interroga sul miracolo in sé, bensí sulla cultura che lo ha identificato come tale. Obiettivo di questo lavoro è infatti ripercorrere in chiave antropologica gli sforzi compiuti da uomini e donne del passato per concettualizzare un fenomeno complesso e sfuggevole. Il miracolo di san Gennaro assurge cosí a punto di osservazione privilegiato da cui ripercorrere non solo la storia di Napoli, ma anche e soprattutto l'evoluzione della mentalità di chi, persino in terre assai lontane, con quell'appuntamento periodico si è nel tempo confrontato. E consente di delineare una storia della meraviglia e della sua funzione conoscitiva. Un racconto di cuori che battono all'impazzata, di mani che pregano e di gole riarse dalle incessanti giaculatorie. Ma anche di occhi che scrutano alla ricerca di un senso. O semplicemente di un perché.

Summary. Seven small tiles of green porphyry
and one of serpentine have been found in Sigtuna.
They are likely to have been used in portable
altars. This high number is unique in Scandinavia
and can only be compared with six porphyry
tiles found in Hedeby/Schleswig.
Red, black and green porphyry was prized by
the emperors in Rome and Constantinople and
later by Early Medieval monarchs. Green porphyry
was quarried in Greece. These quarries
were not in use during the Early Middle Ages.
Instead, the material was scavenged from the remains
of Roman buildings and reused e.g. to
cover the reliquaries in portable altars.
The Sigtuna tiles probably came from the ruins of
Cologne.
The Sigtuna tiles are particularly interesting
since they were not found in Medieval churches,
but when excavating the town plots. They appear
in contexts dated to the 11th and 12th centuries.
The earliest finds date from a time when there is
no archaeological or written evidence of any
churches, even wooden ones, in Sigtuna. It is
therefore suggested here that Christian cult then
took place in private banqueting halls, which
seem to have stood at the far end of each of the
more than hundred town plots in Sigtuna.
The first wooden churches were probably
built c. 1060 when a bishopric was established in
Sigtuna. About 1100 the building of six or seven
Romanesque stone churches commenced. They
are among the oldest masonry structures in all of
Sweden. Except for the cathedral in the middle
of town, all churches were built along a new
street, parallel to and north of the main street and
the settlement area. Sigtuna’s church topography
reflects an intention to create a sacred townscape
for ceremonial processions where both King and
God were praised. It also reflects the idea of the
holy and heavenly city.

Exposición documental para la Biblioteca Palafoxiana, Museos Puebla, enero-febrero de 2022.
Video Museos Puebla.
https://fb.watch/aMzDb7iwSR/

Nota Canal 13 de Puebla:
https://fb.watch/bd7TuhjL7S/

La Biblioteca Palafoxiana –declarada Memoria del Mundo UNESCO en 2005– posee un acervo de inigualable riqueza que aglutina volúmenes de materias como teología, retórica, filosofía y matemáticas, entre otras; sin embargo existen otros temas de gran interés a la espera de ser estudiados. Uno de ellos es el relativo a la veneración a las reliquias, los cuerpos de los santos, práctica que surgió en los primeros siglos del cristianismo y que a lo largo de los siglos ha producido numerosa literatura, tanto de carácter litúrgico como devocional y didáctico.

El objetivo de esta muestra documental es presentar una selección significativa de volúmenes –impresos entre los siglos XVI y XVIII– que versan sobre la reliquia desde la perspectiva litúrgica y devocional. La presencia de estos materiales en la biblioteca, escritos en latín y castellano, revelan el interés de los lectores del ámbito eclesiástico de la Nueva España por estudiar y normar la veneración a los cuerpos de los santos, práctica que continúa vigente hasta el día de hoy.

Static levitation is a form of marvel with metaphysical implications whose long history has not previously been charted. First, Pliny the Elder reports an architect's plan to suspend an iron statue using magnetism, and the later compiler Ampelius mentions a similar-sounding wonder in Syria. When the Serapeum at Alexandria was destroyed, and for many centuries afterwards, chroniclers wrote that an iron Helios had hung magnetically inside. In the Middle Ages, reports of such false miracles multiplied, appearing in Muslim accounts of Christian and Hindu idolatry, as well as Christian descriptions of the tomb of Muhammad. A Christian levitation miracle involving saints' relics also emerged. Yet magnetic suspension could be represented as miraculous in itself, representing lost higher knowledge, as in the latest and easternmost tradition concerning Konark's ruined temple. The levitating monument, first found in classical antiquity, has undergone many cultural and epistemological changes in its long and varied history.

В истории «даров волхвов» из монастыря святого Павла на Афоне можно проследить по историческим источникам следующие периоды: 1) «дароносивые златые сосуды, иже принесоша Христу с дары волсви» в XI-XII вв. хранились в ризнице св. Софии; 2) в 1470 г. Мара Бранкович, дочь сербского деспота Георгия Бранковича и Ирины Кантакузины, жена османского султана Мурата II, принесла «дароносивые златые сосуды, иже принесоша Христу с дары волсви» в дар сербскому монастырю св. Павла на Афоне, о чем гласил турецкий фирман, утраченный во время пожара 1902 г.; 3) в XVI-XVII вв. «дароносивые златые сосуды, иже принесоша Христу с дары волсви» были переделаны в золотой пояс, насчитывающий 9 золотых пластин и 69 бусин из смеси ладана и смирны; 4) после 1744 г., когда монастырь св. Павла вновь заселили греки, число пластин увеличилось до 28, а бусин убавилось на 7.

This article gives a critical review of the studies regarding Saint Sophia church in Sofia. The church has been a subject of interest ever since the Medieval period. Soon after the liberation of Bulgaria from Ottoman rule in 1878, Bulgarian archaeologists started excavating and studying the church and the surrounding necropolis. Several important publications appeared: the most significant among them was the book of Bogdan Filov, which presented the results of his excavations in 1910-1911. The archaeological research conducted in the church between 1989 and 2001 provided new data, which shifted the previously suggested date of the first single-nave church at that site to fifty years later. Another challenge regarding the present Saint Sophia is a study from 2011, arguing that Saint Sophia was built in the second half of the eighth century. The opinion of the author is that the first building at the site was a single-nave church, begun in between 355 and 360 and finished after Emperor Julian's reign. About the end of the fourth century relics were placed beneath the altar table. The article praises the progress in Saint Sophia's studies but also points to the problems that await to be elucidated, namely the history of the church during the next constructive stages.

Lecture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, november 14, 2010). Updated english version of: SUÁREZ OTERO, J. (1999), La Tumba de Santiago, entre la Fe y la Arqueología, in VV.AA., Compostela na Historia. Redescubrimento- rexurdimento (Santiago), 15- 22."