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Sacred Objects & Ritual Items

Reliquary

Also Known As Shrine · feretory · Shrine, feretory
Devotional Objects

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Origin 300 to 400 CE

A container for the physical remains of a saint, or for objects that touched them. Reliquaries are frequently more valuable than anything else a church owns, and their form often announces the contents: an arm-shaped reliquary holds an arm bone, a head-shaped one a skull. Rock crystal windows let pilgrims see in.

Catholic canon law forbids selling relics, and the traffic in them is an old scandal rather than a hypothetical one. Relics are graded, the body itself, then objects the saint used, then things touched to the first two, and the grading matters for what a church may claim.

Facts
Use
Who May Handle It
Clergy or ordained officiants only 2
Consecration
Blessed before use, without a rite of consecration 1
Attributions
Tradition
Christianity, with parallels in Buddhism and Islam 1
Origins
Origin Period
300 to 400 CE 1
Learn More
The Container Worth More Than the Church Around It

A reliquary is a container for the physical remains of a saint, or for objects that touched them, and it is frequently the most valuable thing a church possesses.

Housing a presence

The relic is held to make the holy person present and accessible, a point at which heaven touches earth, and the reliquary exists to protect, honour and display that presence, which is why so much wealth was lavished on it. Reliquaries take the form of caskets, of busts or arms shaped to the relic within, of jewelled crosses, or of small containers worn on the body, and the finest are among the supreme works of medieval metalwork. The altar of a Catholic church has traditionally contained a relic, which ties the reliquary to the very structure of the building.

Devotion, doubt and parallels

The cult of relics drove much of medieval pilgrimage and was a major object of the Reformation critique, which attacked both the veneration and the widespread trade in dubious relics, so the reliquary sits at the centre of a long argument about the material mediation of the holy. The impulse is not confined to Christianity: Buddhism enshrines the relics of the Buddha and of revered teachers in stupas, and Islam preserves relics associated with the Prophet, so the reliquary has close parallels in the containers other traditions build to house what remains of their holy dead.

The Seal That Authenticates It, and Who May Open One

A reliquary's material tells you how valuable the parish or shrine considered its contents, gold, silver, enamel and rock crystal for major relics, plain wood or metal boxes for minor ones, with body part shaped reliquaries, an arm or a head in silver, built specifically to house a matching bone.

Construction and authentication

Made by goldsmiths and jewelers rather than church craftsmen generally, an important reliquary often has a rock crystal or glass window so the relic can be viewed without the case being opened. The relic inside is not just placed there, it is normally accompanied by a small authenticating document, called an authenticum, and the case is sealed with wax bearing a bishop's seal, a physical guarantee that it has not been opened or tampered with since a competent authority verified it.

Who may break that seal

Opening a sealed reliquary without proper ecclesiastical authorization is treated as a serious breach of custody, not a matter of curiosity, and relics are handled only by clergy acting with that authority. When a relic's authenticity is later found doubtful, which has happened to a considerable number of medieval relics over the centuries, church guidance calls for quiet withdrawal from veneration and respectful disposal, typically burial, rather than public announcement or discarding it as a fake. The container itself, once separated from a withdrawn relic, is sometimes repurposed for a different, verified relic rather than destroyed.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Belongs to Tradition

Buddhism, Religions

Buddhist relic containers, in the stupa and the casket traditions, are the closest parallel and are older than the Christian ones.

Source The Buddha's Tooth: Western Tales of a Sri Lankan RelicJohn S. Strong
Christianity, Religions

Christian reliquaries follow from the cult of the martyrs and the practice of building altars over their remains.

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Rejected Here

Calvinism (Reformed), Denominations

Relics were refused outright, and the Reformed argument against them was as much about the traffic in false ones as about the principle.

Source Institutes of the Christian ReligionJohn Calvin
Salafism, Denominations

Relic veneration and the shrines built over graves are the practices the reform set out to remove, and their removal is the movement's most visible historical act.

Source The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi ArabiaDavid Commins
Wahhabism, Denominations

Tomb structures and the relics kept in them were demolished in the Hijaz after the conquest, on the doctrine that they draw to the creature what belongs to the creator.

Source The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi ArabiaDavid Commins

Element Of

Eastern Orthodoxy, Denominations

Relics are sewn into the antimension on which the liturgy is celebrated, so the eucharist is offered on the witness of the martyrs by rule and not by custom.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Roman Catholicism, Denominations

Relics are venerated and were once required in the altar stone. The veneration is directed to the saint and not to the remains.

Source Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd editionHoly Seethe holders' own account
Theravada, Denominations

Relics enshrined in a stupa are the focus of the great Theravada sites, and the merit of circumambulating one is a mainstream lay practice.

Sources
1. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition
F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005on relics and reliquariesView the Source
2. Traite des reliques
Jean Calvin, 1543The advertisement to the reader; the section on the Cross
Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005on relic cults across traditionsView the Source
Decrees of the Second Council of Nicaea
Second Council of Nicaea, 787Canon 7, on relics in altarsthe holders' own accountView the Source
The Buddha's Tooth: Western Tales of a Sri Lankan Relic
John S. Strong, University of Chicago Press, 2021View the Source
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