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WHY RELICS?
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- (The relics of St. Innocent of Irkutsk, in the Znamensky Monastery
Cathedral, Irkutsk, Siberia, Russia.)
WHY IS IT DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND THE
MEANING AND IMPORTANCE OF RELICS?
Understanding why icons and saints are so important to the Orthodox
Faith (see the 2 previous articles) might seem easy compared to understanding the
veneration of saints' relics (their bodies). Why do Orthodox Christians lay out the dead
bodies of saints in "fancy" caskets (reliquaries), place them in prominent
places in churches, travel great distances to where these bodies/relics are in order to
venerate and kiss them, and to pray to the saints by their relics, and to participate in
frequent prayer services (akathists and/or molebens) by these relics?
Why are the saints' bodies important? This essay will seek to answer precisely
these questions.
Frequently it can be difficult for Americans to understand the meaning
and significance of relics, and their important role in traditional Orthodox life, for
they have unconsciously adopted the secular and Protestant world-view of America, rather
than having assimilated an Orthodox world-view. To some, relics might seem weird or even
"ghoulish," while others might think that we should "let the saints go on
to live in peace in heaven." Some people might even be put off by the concept of the
veneration of saints' relics. ["What? People actually go around kissing the bones of
dead people?"] However, much to our own loss, it appears that the most common
attitude among Orthodox in America (other than in Alaska) is indifference towards saints'
relics and their veneration . ["So what's the big deal? So there is this miniscule
particle of the bones of some saint in this tiny metal and glass case. So what? Why should
I care? What difference does it make to me?"]
Certainly, these seemingly prevalent attitudes in North America are sad
and unfortunate, and of course, are totally un-Orthodox or even anti-Orthodox. (We
might remind the reader that the rejection of the very concept of saints and the
veneration of their relics was a significant element of the 16th century Protestant
Reformation.) To a certain extent, however, it is understandable that these attitudes
prevail today in America, for two major reasons.
1) Lack of experience and exposure to
saints' relics in America
The first major reason for these prevalent attitudes towards saints'
relics is the lack of experience and exposure in North America to the relics of saints. We
have only very few full relics (by this we mean the entire, complete body) of saints in
America, and most of those whom we do have, have been glorified as saints only quite
recently. Father Herman of Alaska is the only complete relic whose holy presence has
blessed us for a long time (since 1837), and not many people get to go to Kodiak Island,
Alaska, where his relics are now (see photo below), having been brought there
from Spruce Island, that is far more remote than Kodiak, at the time of his glorification
in 1970. (Presently, there are also the complete relics of St. Alexis Toth at St. Tikhon's
Monastery in South Canaan, Pennsylvania, and St. John Maximovich in San Francisco.) Thus,
most North American-born Orthodox have not grown up accustomed to the awesome and
miraculous presence of the relics of saints that exists in traditionally Orthodox
countries, such as Russia, Greece and Romania, (unless they have traveled to these other
countries as Orthodox pilgrims). American Orthodox have not had the opportunity to become
accustomed to making pilgrimages to the saints' relics, or participating in the saints'
annual feast day celebrations. They have not had the opportunity and blessing of seeing
and participating in this vital aspect of traditional Orthodox life. Therefore, they
haven't yet acquired this gift of Orthodox vision --- of seeing the phenomenon of
venerating saints' relics from an Orthodox perspective.
2) Lack of experience leads to lack of
understanding about saints' relics
The lack of experience with saints' relics leads naturally to the second
rather understandable reason for the apparently prevalent indifference to the saints and
their relics, namely, the lack of understanding and knowledge about this important aspect
of Orthodoxy --- for it can be difficult to understand something that is outside one's
experience.
Having thus speculated about why it is difficult for Americans to
understand the meaning and importance of saints' relics and their veneration, and having
made an observation about the seemingly prevalent attitudes towards the saints and their
relics, and why these attitudes might exist, let us now turn our attention to trying to
explain precisely why veneration of the saints' relics is so important
to Orthodoxy.
WHY IS THE VENERATION OF SAINTS' RELICS
SO IMPORTANT TO ORTHODOXY?
1) The relics are a means of grace for us,
the living
Why do we venerate saints and their relics? Certainly, the saints do not
NEED to be glorified by us as saints. The only reason the Holy Orthodox Church
glorifies saints is to help us. The Lord's saints manifest themselves to us who
are still on earth in order to assist us. The Lord gives to us the relics of His saints as
a means of grace for us --- a visible and tangible means of contact, and as a vehicle of
innumerable miracles --- just as He gives to us icons and the Holy Mysteries (Sacraments)
as vehicles of Divine Grace.
2) The Biblical basis of relics and
their veneration
(We will be developing this section.)
3) The relics bear witness to the validity
of the purpose of the Orthodox spiritual life, and Orthodox theological and spiritual
principles (We will be working on this section
some more.)
 | a) Saints' relics and their veneration are very closely related to
the concept of holiness and why there MUST be saints and MUST be icons. (See the other FIREBIRD Articles on this web site, Why Icons?, Prayers for the Journey along the Way), especially
#4, "Holiness," and most particularly, Why Saints?) Relics affirm every single
assertion made in the Why Saints? article.
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| b) The veneration of saints is vital to the life of the Holy
Orthodox Church, because the existence of saints affirms that it is truly possible to
fulfill the Christian vocation --- to become conformed to the image of Christ --- because
every Christian is called to be a saint, for Christ commanded us to be perfect as our
heavenly Father is perfect. |
| c) The theology of the icon is in part also the theology of the
veneration of saints' relics and their frequent incorruption --- in essence, that the body
participates in the process of transfiguration / sanctification / deification /
theosis --- different words for the same process of salvation. |
| d) The veneration of saints' relics and their frequent incorruption
affirm that the physical world indeed does have the potential for being transfigured and
resurrected, as it participates in the restoration of humanity to the beauty of the Divine
Image and Likeness. That the physical world participates in the process of sanctification
is a fundamental element of Orthodox spiritual theology, and is an underlying principle in
both the theology of icons and the theology of the veneration of saints' relics. In this,
Orthodoxy diverges to some extent from Roman Catholic theology, and diverges enormously
from Protestant theology, which vehemently denies the possibility of the deification (theosis)
of humans or the sanctification of the material world. However, it is exactly these very
principles (of theosis and sanctification of the physical world), that are
manifested and achieved during the years of ascetic and spiritual experiences practiced by
so many of the saints, that accounts for the widespread occurrence of the incorruption of
saints' bodies. Basically, the saints bodies were so transfigured and deified by their
sanctity, that even after their souls separated from their bodies, the elevated sanctity
of their bodies remained, so that their flesh did not decompose, and their bodies exude a
sweet fragrance. However, even for most of the saints, to whom the gift of
incorruption was not given, their bones still exude the miraculous power of the
first-fruits of the resurrection and of the Kingdom of God. |
| e) Incorruption of relics, like icons, affirm that the physical
world indeed DOES have the potential for being transfigured and resurrected, as
it participates in the restoration of humanity to the beauty of the Divine Image and
Likeness. The sanctified and transfigured bodies of the saints, (whether or not they are
incorrupt), are so powerful that numerous miracles occur by means of the saint's relics,
or even by being annointed with oil from the lamps burning by their relics, or from soil
from the ground where the saints are or were buried. Of course, most of the saints were
also vehicles of miracles while they were yet in their bodies, and this miraculous grace
continues to flow from them after their repose. |
| f) The physical world was created good and the process of the
transfiguration of the world, which is the end purpose of the Orthodox Christian life and
struggles, is part of the process of the transfiguration and salvation of each person. The
incorruption of saints' bodies and the miracles performed through the relics of saints is
a foretaste or firstfruits of the restoration of the world to the way in which God created
it. |
HOW DO WE EXPERIENCE AND ENCOUNTER THE
SAINTS THROUGH THEIR RELICS?
- Having briefly considered a few of the spiritual and theological principles that form
the basis for the Orthodox veneration of relics, let us now briefly explore
and describe the practical experience that Orthodox Christians have or may have with the
saints by means of their relics.
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- 1) Antimension/Antimins
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- First, all Orthodox Christians have a very close experience with the
relics of the saints, except that they usually are not aware of it. From the very earliest
Christian times, the Divine Liturgy has been celebrated on the tombs of the martyred
saints, (those who bore witness to the Faith), where, on the anniversary of the
saint's martyrdom, the faithful would go to the catacombs (in Rome) or other place of
burial, and celebrate the Divine Liturgy. This earliest Orthodox Christian tradition has
been maintained by the Church --- with a certain variation. Since we cannot usually go to
the martyred saints' graves, one might say that the Church brings the martyrs' relics to
us. How is this done? By means of an Antimension or Antimins. All
Orthodox Divine Liturgies MUST be served on top of a special cloth, called an Antimins
or Antimension, which is signed by the bishop and given by him to each church under
his jursidiction (and occasionally to an individual priest). Upon each antimension
is a representation of the entombment / lamentation of Christ, and into the antimension
are sewn small particles of the relics (bones) of martyr-saints. Every church has at
least one antimension, which permits the Liturgy to be served, under the
authority of its bishop. Furthermore, when the full consecration of a temple and its altar
is performed by the bishop, relics of martyr-saints are always placed into the altar (holy
table) itself. Thus, every person present at each Divine Liturgy is actually participating
in the veneration of relics, whether or not the person is aware of it.
2) Encountering the saints through their
relics
a) Pilgrimages to venerate a saint's
relics
- The lively and awesome, even mind-boggling experience of encountering the
saints by means of their relics is actually the crux of the whole question of the
practical experience of the veneration of saints' relics. When one journeys as a pilgrim
to the places where the bodies of the saints are buried, and approaches with faith, one
can truly encounter the saint, and feel the saint's holiness and close presence. Generally
the saints' relics are miraculous, and very often they are incorrupt. (Incorrupt
relics means that the skin has not decomposed, but is still present around the bones, and
usually there is a sweet fragrance around the body, rather than the stench of putrefied
flesh. In other words, the saint's body is not just a skeleton, but a whole body, with all
the skin still there. However, these are not "mummies," for there has been no
embalming whatsoever, which has never been an Orthodox practice. There are enumerable
examples of incorrupt relics of the saints.) Customarily, after a holy person has
been glorified as a saint, either locally or universally, the relics of the saint are
placed in a large coffin or casket-like reliquary, which sometimes can be quite ornate,
and carried in a grand procession to a new place of honor, often in the main
cathedral, that is readily accessible to people to venerate the saint's relics. (This
"transferring of relics" is commonly translated in English as the
"translation of the relics.") Frequently it has been the many miracles
that occur at the site of a holy person's relics, sometimes combined with their
incorruption, that creates the impetus to initiate the recognition of the holy person as a
saint and leads to their universal glorification, often following long-time local
veneration.
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- St. Xenia of St. Petersburg (St. Petersburg)
- Pilgrimages to the relics of saints is not just something historical,
belonging to the past, as it tends to be for Roman Catholics and to the West in general,
but is very lively and active today in Orthodox countries and in Alaska (which is the
closest thing to an Orthodox country in the Western Hemisphere). For example, countless
thousands of people flock daily to the
 chapel over the relics/grave of
Blessed St. Xenia of St. Petersburg (see photo to the right), located in the
Smolensk Cemetery in St. Petersburg, Russia. (See the FIREBIRD Saints' Lives photo-article, The
Life of St. Xenia.) People pray inside the chapel during services that go on
throughout the day, lighting candles and venerating her grave. And people pray outside
also, walking around the chapel, praying on each side, and praying fervently while leaning
their heads against the wall behind which is the grave of the Blessed One. This has been
occurring without stop for the almost two centuries since her repose (around 1803).
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- St. Sergius of Radonezh and St. Innocent of Alaska
(Sergiev Posad)
- About 45 miles northeast of Moscow, in the city of Sergiev Posad, similar
 thousands of pilgrims flock to the Holy
Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra Monastery (see the FIREBIRD photo-article, Beautiful
Russia: Sergiev Posad) in order to venerate the relics of St. Sergius of Radonezh
(see photo to the left), which are located in the Holy Trinity Church (see the FIREBIRD photo-article, The Life of St.Sergius). In Russia
today many of the relics of saints that had been confiscated by the communists, have been
recovered and returned to their traditional resting places, including such beloved saints
as St. Seraphim of Sarov (see the FIREBIRD photo-article, The Life of
St.Seraphim), St. Alexander Svirsky and St. Innocent of Irkutsk (see the
photo at the top, and see the FIREBIRD photo-article, The Life
of St. Innocent of Irkutsk). The relics of two of our own recently glorified
American-Russian saints, St. Innocent of Alaska (see the FIREBIRD photo-article, The Life of St. Innocent of Alaska)
and Patriarch St. Tikhon (see theFIREBIRD photo-article, The Life of Patriarch St. Tikhon),
have been moved from their original burial sites to a prominent place in a proper
reliquary so they can be venerated by the faithful: St. Innocent's relics (see photo
to the right) are located by the left front pillar of the Dormition Cathedral in the
Trinity-Sergius Lavra Monastery (see the FIREBIRD article, Beautiful Russia:
Sergiev Posad), and Patriarch St. Tikhon's relics are in a similar fine reliquary
by the left front solea in the main cathedral of the Donskoi Men's Monastery in Moscow.
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- St. Herman of Alaska (Kodiak)
- In North America, numerous pilgrims journey to Kodiak Island, Alaska,
each year for the annual feast day celebration and pilgrimage commemorating the
glorification of St. Herman on August 8th-9th. Included in this pilgrimage, weather
permitting, is the frequently difficult trip to Spruce Island where Father Herman lived
for the latter part of his life. (See the FIREBIRD photo-article, The Life of
St.Herman). This has been, and always will be, the number one holy place in
America, where we can really encounter the
 presence of
a true saint who lived in our own land (and whose full relics are still here),
encountering him by means of his holy relics (see photo to the left), in addition
to being present where he lived and walked and was buried.
- It has been a very strong and ancient Orthodox tradition for the faithful
to go on a pilgrimage at least once a year to a holy place (holy, usually because
a saint lived and was buried there, or where there is a miraculous icon). Frequently the
pilgrimage is made for the saint's feast day, when many thousands may come for the
celebration. Usually there is the Vigil for the saint the evening before the feast day,
and then the Divine Liturgy is served on the feast day, followed by a Moleben or Akathist
to the saint, frequently in conjunction with a procession with an icon of the saint. At
the burial-site of specially beloved saints, it is common to sing an Akathist to
the saint weekly, as is also done sometimes in parishes when they are blessed to have a
small particle of a saint's relics, especially if it is the parish's patron saint, or a
saint of the region.
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- b) What does one do when one
venerates a saint's relics?
- People venerate a saint's relics in much the same manner as on Holy and
Great Friday/Saturday, one venerates the Holy Shroud of Christ's Entombment (the
plashchenitsa [Slavic] or Epitaphion (Greek)]: one makes three complete
prostrations, and kisses the feet and the hands, and either the Gospels book (on the Holy
Shroud), or the mitre or cloth over the head. Usually people venerate a saint's relics
through a protective metal and/or glass cover of the reliquary; sometimes this interior
cover is all glass, and at other times the interior cover over the lower part of the body
is metal, with glass over the head. It is an extraordinary and rare blessing to have the
interior cover opened up so that one is able to kiss a saint's holy body itself. There are
numerous places throughout Orthodox lands where thousands of pilgrims journey to venerate
their local saint or other specially beloved saint. By venerating the saint, not only does
one convey one's love for the saint, but also, one may bring into oneself and one's life
the holiness and the blessing of the saint, dependent on one's faith and receptivity; and
at times various miracles may occur. To be able to venerate the full body relics of the
saints where they are buried is an awesome, overwhelming and mind-boggling experience, and
an incomparable blessing that words cannot begin to describe.
c) If we can't go to the saints, the saints may
come to us
Now, what about the veneration of saints through their relics for all those who cannot
go to where the bodies of specially beloved saints are located? In a way similar to the Antimensia,
when we cannot go to the saints relics, the Holy Church helps us by allowing the relics to
be brought to us. This is usually done by the bishop in whose diocese a saint's relics are
located, who takes a small particle of the saint's bones, and puts it into a specially
prepared wax mixture which both protects and preserves the bone, and  then places this relic-in-wax into a small round mini-reliquary,
usually metal with glass. (A common type is like a silver star-burst, such as is attached
to the icon of St. Innocent of Irkutsk, to the left.) This mini-reliquary can then be
brought to a local church as a special blessing for that church and its people. (Relics
are not to be kept in people's homes, but only at church.) It is very common that such
small mini-reliquaries will be attached to an icon of the saint (as we see in the
three icons shown here: St. Innocent of Irkutsk--to the right; St. Alexis Toth of
Wilkes-Barre, PA--below to the left; and St. Herman of Alaska--below to the
right), although sometimes they are put into a glass-covered case.
Certainly, it is true that it is more awesome, overwhelming and mind-boggling to be
present by the saint's full-body burial casket-reliquary to most fully encounter the
presence of the saint. We see a similar  phenomenon in daily life, where
people go the grave of a loved one to especially communicate with the person and feel the
loved one's presence. But if we cannot go to the grave, we might gaze at a photograph of
the loved one. Similarly, if we can't go to the beloved saint's burial casket-reliquary,
we can gaze at an icon of the saint, through which we can encounter the saint, and we can
venerate a little particle of the saint's relics, as though it were the entire body of the
holy one, and encounter the entire presence of the saint. Yes, it takes a little more
effort on our part to realize that the saint's entire presence is truly in the small
particle of his body, but the reward is more than worth the effort. Perhaps we can
understand this more vividly, if we reflect how there is a parallel to the experience of
receiving Holy Communion: no matter how small a piece of the Body of Christ
that we receive in Holy Communion, Christ's Presence exists fully and completely.
And thus, in a similar way, if we are blessed to have available to us even the smallest
particle of a beloved saint's relics, we can make the conscious choice to approach with
faith and venerate that particle as though we were venerating the saint's full body in the
saint's casket-reliquary. Furthermore, just as we must neither refuse to approach
at all, nor to approach the chalice of Christ's Body and Blood and receive Holy Communion
with indifference, so likewise, we must neither refuse to approach at all, nor to approach
with indifference the precious relics (and icons) of Christ's Friends, His Holy Ones, His
Servants --- the Saints. Let us take full advantage of all the grace which Christ and His
Saints offer to us by means of the relics of Christ's Holy Saints, by approaching with
reverence, faith and love, and venerating the relics of the Christ's Holy Saints, no
matter how large or how small the relics may be.
- THROUGH THE PRAYERS OF YOUR HOLY SAINTS,
- LORD JESUS CHRIST OUR GOD,
- HAVE MERCY UPON US AND SAVE US!
-
- [N.B. We are still working on polishing this new article
- and we intend to add a section on the biblical basis of
relics,
- when time allows.]
This article was written by Jane M. deVyver, M.Th., Ph.D.
All the photos are by the author, (except the reliquary of St. Sergius of
Radonezh).
If you would like to pursue these ideas further, in addition to reading
our other FIREBIRD Articles, you
would probably be interested in the FIREBIRD Books,
The Artistic Unity of the Russian Orthodox
Church (product #47), and The
Orthodox Church's Vision of Unity (product #45).
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ST. INNOCENT/
