Trier cathedral keeps a garment venerated as the seamless tunic that the soldiers at the crucifixion cast lots for rather than divide, as the gospel of John describes. Tradition attributes its arrival to Helena, the mother of Constantine, who is associated with the city and credited with recovering relics of the Passion in Jerusalem. Documentary evidence for the robe begins much later, in the twelfth century, and the textile itself has been repaired and encased so often that little of the original fabric is accessible. The church has never pronounced on its authenticity, and the diocese presents it as an object of devotion rather than as a proven relic.
It is shown rarely. Great pilgrimages were held in 1512 at the emperor's request and at intervals since, with showings in 1933, 1959, 1996 and 2012, each drawing hundreds of thousands.
The exposition of 1844 had a consequence nobody intended. Half a million pilgrims came, and a Silesian priest named Johannes Ronge published an open letter denouncing the whole business as idolatry and superstition. He was excommunicated, and the movement that gathered around him, the German Catholics, formed congregations across the German states with a rationalist programme and lay governance. It was absorbed into free religious associations later in the century, but for a decade a relic in Trier had produced a national schism.