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Fancy reliquary theca with relics of the True Cross of Jesus Christ

Historically important large mid- 18th-century ornate brass reliquary theca housing on the background of red silk significant relics of The True Cross of Jesus Christ. The relics are arranged in a cruciform shape and titled on ornate paper cedula as Ex Cruce D. N. J. C. (Of the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ). The back of the theca behind the metal cap is secured by a seal of red Spanish wax with a coat of arms of Monsignor Giovanni Antonio Guadagni (+1759), cardinal vicar general of Rome (1732 - 1756) who was himself beatified as Servant of God under Pope Pius XII.

The True Cross is the name for physical remnants which, by the Church tradition, are believed to be from the cross upon which Jesus was crucified. Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine, the first Christian Emperor of Rome, traveled to the Holy Land in 326–28, where she discovered the hiding place of three crosses that were believed to be used at the crucifixion of Jesus and of two thieves, St. Dismas and Gestas, executed with him, and a miracle revealed which of the three was the True Cross. Fragments of the Cross were broken up, and the pieces were widely distributed; in 348, in one of his Catecheses, Cyril of Jerusalem remarked that the "whole earth is full of the relics of the Cross of Christ." Most of the very small relics of the True Cross in Europe came from Constantinople after the city was captured and sacked in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade. They were carved up by the present bishops and divided with other very precious relics among the knights; who, after their return to the homeland, donated them to churches and monasteries.

 

 

Additional Info

  • ID#: 69-RSCR-55
  • Size: 120 x 85 mm
  • Age: ca. late 18th century
  • Materials: Brass
  • Price: SOLD!
  • Orthodox Cross
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