HOLY BLOOD RETURNED
On 1 June, thieves raided Fécamp Abbey in northern France and made off with a chalice, a ciborium, liturgical dishes, various works of art and several pieces of gold. They also stole an elaborate copper reliquary inlaid with blue enamel that housed two lead vials containing drops of Jesus’s blood, which, according to legend, had been collected at the Crucifixion in the Holy Grail and had arrived in Fécamp by washing ashore after being thrown into the sea in a trunk. The theft, which took place less than two weeks before an annual mass celebrating the relic, was described by the Bishop of Le Havre, Jean-Luc Brunin, as an intolerable attack on people’s faith and on a tradition that stretched back to the 12th century. However, six weeks after the theft, the holy blood and its reliquary were returned unharmed to Dutch art detective Arthur Brand, who passed them on to the Abbey. Brand said: “I think the thief had no idea what it was… When they realised what it was, that you in fact cannot sell it, they knew they had to get rid of it. To have the ultimate relic, the blood of Jesus in your home, stolen, that’s a curse.” Brand, who had been involved in the
