Relics of the Passion

By Marcelle Bartolo-Abela

An illustrated and well-referenced overview, history, and provenance of nine famous relics of the Passion of Christ. The relics presented are the True Cross, the column and ropes of the flagellation, the very rare purple robe, the crown of thorns, the True Effigy, the burial shroud, the stone of the anointing, and the holy sepulcher.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Panormi Books
• Release date: Dec 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9789918952601

Book preview

The True Cross

After the death of Jesus Christ, the last thing the leaders of the Jews wanted to hear was any mention of Christ being able to rise from the dead (Mayo, 2018). They had heard enough of that in the preceding years and wanted it no more. For them, it was blasphemy. To prevent such a thing from happening, after Christ died, the Jews dumped the wood of the Cross into a ditch and covered it over with several boulders to prevent it from being found. However, in AD 320, the aged Saint Helena, mother of the emperor Constantine, visited Jerusalem in the hope of learning more about Christ’s life and the places He had been (Socrates Scholasticus, 1984).

Supported by her son and Saint Macarius of Jerusalem,[1] Helena ordered that the 2nd century temple to Venus[2] – suspected to have been built upon the tomb of Christ – be destroyed and replaced by the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher (ibid.; Eusebius of Caesarea, 4th cent.). As workers were carrying out the demolition and excavation works in compliance with Helena’s request, under the religio-jurisdictional supervision of Macarius, three crosses were found buried