BAROQUE ALTAR RELIQUARY, TRUE CROSS RELIC, DOC! (04/30/2011)

Home > Worthopedia – Price Guide > Fraternal, Political, Organizations >

BAROQUE ALTAR RELIQUARY, TRUE CROSS RELIC, DOC!

Terms and Conditions for using our site

BAROQUE ALTAR RELIQUARY, TRUE CROSS RELIC, DOC!

Sold For:

or Sign In to see what it's worth.

Sold Date: 04/30/2011
Channel: Online Auction
Source: eBay
Category: Fraternal, Political, Organizations

A spiritual treasure, worthy the treasury of a major Cathedral:

BEAUTIFUL BAROQUE ALTAR RELIQUARY

WITH A RELIC OF THE TRUE CROSS,

Document 1778

A beautiful 18th century silver front altar reliquary, ca. 20 inches in height.

A beautiful work of the Roman Silversmiths of the late 18th century - nearly 250 years old! The reliquary is in a good condition.

Inside, behind glass, surrounded by filigree "paperoles" decoration, is a theca, sealed with the red wax seal of Bishop Dominic John Prosperi, Bishop of St. Severin/Italy with the threads intact.

Inside, placed on fligree gold decoration, is the precious relic - two splinters of the True Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

The relic comes with its original document, issued on February 6, 1778 by Bishop Prosperi, guaranteeing the authenticity of the "most sacred particles of wood of the Most Holy Cross on whichg Our Lord Jessu Christ hung for the salvation of all of us" and allowing the public veneration of this precious relic.

The seal was confirmed by the Vicar General of Bishop Prosperi, who, on the reverse of the document, allowed the exposure of the relic "in the Church of this city" on August 14, 1781.

Please note that relics with still the original documents are rather rare. Although already the red wax seal guarantees the authenticity of the relic, the document is necessary in case you want to donate the reliquary to your Parish Church one day.

The precious relic is

Ex Ligno SSme. Crucis Domini Nostri Jesu Christi

of Most Holy Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ

According to several Church historians of the 4th and 5th century, the True Cross was discovered in 325 AD when Emperor Constantine the Great ordered the removal of a pagan temple built by Hadrian over the site of the Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre. Beneath the structure, in an old cistern, three crosses, the title with the inscription "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews", and three nails were found. In the presence of the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, the Cross of Christ was identified by the 'titulus' and the nail holes, and later confirmed by a miracle. It was laid upon a sick woman who was immediately miraculously cured.

Helena divided the most precious wood into several parts, leaving a fragment in Jerusalem, sending a second to her son in Constantinople and taking a third to Rome. A part of it and half of the title with the inscription I NAZARINUS R... is still preserved and venerated in the Basilica di S. Croce , one of the seven main churches of the Eternal City. In 1998, a careful investigation was commissioned by the Holy See and seven Israeli experts on the dating of inscriptions (comparative palaeography) dated its letters into the 1st century, the time of Christ. This suddenly gave the 'legend of the Finding of the Cross' a lot of credibility.

Already in 349 AD, St. Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, stated that the True Cross "has been distributed, fragment by fragment, from this spot (Jerusalem) and has already nearly filled the world", confirming the early practise of distributing tiny particles of the Most Holy Wood. When St. Paulinus of Nola sent one to a friend in ca. 401 AD, he wrote: "Receive a great gift in a little case and take this segment as an armament against the perils of the present and a pledge of everlasting safety". He stressed that "even the smallest particle bears in it the whole power of the Cross of Christ".

The claim of the "enlightened" sceptics, that all relics of the True Cross would be sufficient to build a ship, was proven wrong in 1870 by the French scholar Rohault de Fleury, who mathematically calculated the volume of all relics of the True Cross in all European Cathedrals and found them all together having the mass of only one third of a Roman cross!

As per Ebay's new rules, this item is allowed as it contains no human remains but objects of devotion; the relic is of wood. Please note that you bid o...