Sankta Lucia

Vad ska man säga om reliker? I Venedig finns massor. Sankta Lucia ligger som Törnrosa i gyllene glaskista. Stadens kyrkor vimlar av delar av apostlars ben, armar, skallar och tänder. Den som vill kan t ex falla i trance inför en tagg ur Jesu törnekrona, flisor från korset han bar. Eller inför bröstmjölk (?) och hårstrån från Jungfru Maria? Bröstmjölk? Eller dyrka Jungfruns oskuld medan hororna utanför försöker locka dig till sig med luftpussar.

Lyckliga kvinnor (prästen såg besvärad ut) vittnade om relikernas mirakulösa krafter. T ex ett nyligen utfört av Sankta Lucia, synens och ljusets helgon. Glädjestrålande vittnade en troende hur en kvinna i Australien genomgått en ögonoperation och delvis fått sin syn tillbaka. All tack vare Sankta Lucia. Borde inte läkaren tackas?

Så hör jag att St Lucia inte bara ligger i Venedig utan återförts till Syrakusa där hon ligger på parad i kyrkan. Och att rester av henne finns i en rad andra länder och kyrkor. Det är bara och skaka på huvudet. Eller som italienarna säger när jag påpekar bristen på logik: "Vi är inte tyskar? Din fråga är typiskt anglo-saxisk". Runt om hennes glaskista står skyltar som uppmanar en att ge pengar.

T o m katolska encyklopedien svävar på målet: ...With regard to her relics, Sigebert (1030-1112), a monk of Gembloux, in his "sermo de Sancta Lucia", says that he body lay undisturbed in Sicily for 400 years, before Faroald, Duke of Spoleto, captured the island and transferred the saint's body to Corfinium in Italy. Thence it was removed by the Emperor Otho I, 972, to Metz and deposited in the church of St. Vincent. And it was from this shrine that an arm of the saint was taken to the monastery of Luitburg in the Diocese of Spires--an incident celebrated by Sigebert himself in verse.

The subsequent history of the relics is not clear. On their capture of Constantinople in 1204, the French found some of the relics in that city, and the Doge of Venice secured them for the monastery of St. George at Venice. In the year 1513 the Venetians presented to Louis XII of France the head of the saint, which he deposited in the cathedral church of Bourges. Another account, however, states that the head was brought to Bourges from Rome whither it had been transferred during the time when the relics rested in Corfinium ...

Britanican skriver: ...in the broad sense, the term also includes any object that has been in contact with the saint. Among the major religions, Christianity, almost exclusively in Roman Catholicism, and Buddhism have emphasized the veneration of relics.

The basis of Christian cult veneration of relics is the conception that reverence for the relics redounds to the honour of the saint. While expectation of favours may accompany the devotion, it is not integral to it. The first Christian reference to relics comes from Acts of the Apostles and explains that handkerchiefs that touched the skin of St. Paul while he was preaching in Corinth were able to heal the sick and exorcise demons. During the 2nd century AD, in the Martyrdom of Polycarp, the bones of the martyred bishop of Smyrna are described as “more valuable than precious stones.” The veneration of relics continued and grew in Christianity. Generally, the expectation of miracles increased during the Middle Ages, while the flood of Oriental relics into Europe during the Crusades raised serious questions as to their authenticity and ethical procurement. St. Thomas Aquinas, the great Roman Catholic theologian, however, considered it natural to cherish the remains of the saintly dead and found sanction for the veneration of relics in God's working of miracles in the presence of relics.

Roman Catholic thought, defined in 1563 at the Council of Trent and subsequently affirmed, maintained that relic veneration was permitted and laid down rules to assure the authenticity of relics and exclude venal practices. Among the most venerated of Christian relics were the fragments of the True Cross.

Relic worship was canonically established in Buddhism from its earliest days. Tradition (Mahaparinibbana Sutta) states that the cremated remains of the Buddha (d. c. 483 BC) were distributed equally among eight Indian tribes in response to a demand for his relics. Commemorative mounds (stupas) were built over these relics, over the vessel from which the bones were distributed, and over the collective ashes of the funeral pyre. The emperor Ashoka (3rd century BC) is said to have redistributed some of the relics among the innumerable stupas he had erected. Such shrines became important and popular centres of pilgrimage.