Belongs To Tradition

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

Church Bodies gathers ten institutions that hold contested or venerated objects at the center of their own worship, from cathedrals guarding fragments of the Passion to an archive keeping a modern forgery for what it reveals.

Several claim different Passion relics outright. Notre-Dame de Paris keeps the Crown of Thorns, which survived the 2019 fire that destroyed the cathedral's spire and roof and returned with its 2024 reopening. Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome traces its relic chapel to Helena's own collecting in the Holy Land, including fragments said to be from the True Cross. The Archdiocese of Turin has held the Shroud of Turin since 1578, ownership passed to the Holy See in 1983. Valencia's cathedral keeps the Santo Caliz, venerated as the cup of the Last Supper, and Oviedo's keeps the Sudarium, a cloth venerated as Jesus's head cloth. The Fabbrica di San Pietro cares for the Veil of Veronica, shown publicly once yearly from a high balcony.

Two make the same claim to the same object. The Basilica of Saint Denys in Argenteuil and the Diocese of Trier each keep a seamless tunic venerated as the one Jesus wore at his crucifixion, Argenteuil's said given by Charlemagne around the year 800 and Trier's held since the twelfth century; the claims have never been reconciled, and Trier's 1844 showing provoked a German Catholic breakaway movement.

Two custodians hold documents rather than relics. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints keeps the Salamander Letter as a documented forgery from the Mark Hofmann affair, restricted to researchers. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem's library at Mar Saba once held the volume with Morton Smith's photographed Secret Mark letter, whose leaves were removed and have not been publicly produced since.