Christianity cultivates the worship of relics and has the largest number of them. There are fewer of them in Buddhism, even fewer among Muslims, and practically none of them among Jews and Hindus. Forbes Magazine has selected 10 of the most famous relics revered in major world religions …
Shroud of Turin
The Shroud is a canvas in which, according to legend, the body of the executed Jesus Christ was wrapped and on which the imprint of his body remained. The first mention of it dates back to 1353, when Geoffroy de Charny, a participant in the Crusades, announced that he possessed this relic.
Since 1532, the shroud has been kept in the Cathedral of John the Baptist in Turin, placed in a special ark, and is periodically available for viewing by pilgrims. The Christian Church does not have a single position on the authenticity of the Turin Shroud, and according to radiocarbon analysis, the fabric was made in the XIV century.
Popularity: in 2010, the relic was opened for pilgrimage for the first time in the new millennium, and 2.1 million people saw it in 45 days.
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Head of John the Baptist
John the Baptist, who baptized Jesus on the banks of the Jordan, was executed at the request of Salome, the daughter of Herodias, the wife of the tetrarch of Galilee Herod Antipas. According to legend, the head kept by Herodias was carried out of the palace by one of her maids, after which the shrine was secretly buried.
The Orthodox Church celebrates three discoveries of the head of John the Baptist. The Catholic considers it the only genuine head that is kept in the church of San Silvestro in Capite in Rome. Followers of Islam, in turn, claim that the head of John the Baptist is in the Umayyad mosque in Damascus.
However, there are several other places where the head is also believed to be kept: Amiens, Antioch and Armenia.
Popularity: The total number of pilgrims annually striving to see the head of John the Baptist in all named places is in the hundreds of thousands.
Virgin Mary Belt
A relic, which, according to legend, the Virgin Mary, before her ascension, handed over together with the robe to two Jerusalem widows (in the Catholic tradition, to the Apostle Thomas). From the 4th century A. D. e. the belt was kept in Constantinople, and after its fall in 1453 it was divided into several parts, which ended up in different countries.
Today, five places are known where the particles of the Virgin's belt are stored. One of them, the smallest one, is located in Moscow, in the temple of Elijah the Prophet the Ordinary, and the most famous ones are in the Vatopedi monastery on Mount Athos and in the Prato Cathedral in Italy.
In addition, the Trooditissa Monastery in Cyprus and the Blachernae Church in the Georgian city of Zugdidi declare their possession of the particles of the Virgin Mary belt.
Popularity: according to preliminary data, over 2.5 million Russians in 15 cities came to bow to the relics brought from Greece for a month.
Crown of thorns
By order of Pontius Pilate, the crown of thorns was placed on the head of Jesus Christ before he set out on the way of the cross to Calvary. Today, the revered relic is kept in the most famous cathedral of Paris, Notre Dame de Paris - Notre Dame Cathedral.
It came to France in the XIII century: the crown laid by the Emperor of Constantinople in a Venetian bank was bought by King Louis IX the Saint. It was originally kept in the Saint-Chapelle Basilica, after 1801 - in Notre-Dame de Paris.
Popularity: every first Friday of the month, and on Catholic Lent - every Friday and Good Friday, the relic is brought out to the faithful, and each time thousands of people gather to look at it.
Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God
Tradition attributes the authorship of this icon to the Evangelist Luke, but it is more likely that he wrote the original version, from which a copy was then made.
At the beginning of the 12th century, Prince Yuri Dolgoruky received this icon as a gift from the Patriarch of Constantinople, Luke Chrysoverga. From 1155 to 1395, the relic was kept in the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir, from where it got its name. Then she was in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, was confiscated under Soviet rule and ended up in the State Tretyakov Gallery.
Since 1999, the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God has been kept in the Church-Museum of St. Nicholas in Tolmachi.
Popularity: Hundreds of people visit the church-museum of St. Nicholas in Tolmachi every day.
Prophet Muhammad's beard
According to the legend, after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, the barber devoted to him shaved off the beard of the revered one and preserved it. Today, the relic, considered the beard of the Prophet, is kept in the Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul and can be seen not only by Muslim pilgrims, but also by tourists.
In addition, several hairs from Muhammad's beard are known, which are stored in different parts of the world, including the Khazratbal Mosque (Srinagar, India) and the Tyumen Regional Museum. The Prophet's hair came to Russia at the end of the 19th century through the efforts of the Tyumen merchant-patron Nigmatulla-haji Karmyshkov-Seydukov and was kept in the Yurt Embaevsky mosque until it was withdrawn in the 1920s and transferred to the museum.
Popularity: Every day, Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul is visited by several thousand people.
Black stone of the Kaaba
In the eastern corner of the sacred for Muslims building - the Kaaba in the Protected Mosque in Mecca - a black stone is mounted, which the followers of Islam call the Stone of Forgiveness.
In the Muslim tradition, the Stone of Forgiveness does not possess any supernatural properties and must first of all indicate the angle from which the circumambulation of the Kaaba begins.
Nevertheless, pilgrims tend to kiss this stone, or at least touch it, following the example of the Prophet Muhammad. According to legend, Allah gave the stone ("white yahont") to Adam when he was thrown to the ground and reached Mecca, and initially it was white, but turned black, saturated with human sins.
The non-Muslim tradition, as a rule, considers it to be a meteorite, but it has not yet been unequivocally proven.
Popularity: about 3 million people have visited Mecca this year during the hajj.
Makam Ibrahima
Another relic found in the Protected Mosque in Mecca. According to the teachings of Islam, when the Prophet Ibrahim restored the Kaaba and its walls rose higher than his height, his son Ismail rolled a stone for his father, on which he finished the construction of the building.
Muslims consider it one of the miracles that during the construction the stone became soft, and the prints of Ibrahim's feet remained on it. Standing next to the maqam of Ibrahim, the imams lead the prayer of the faithful, of whom several millions come every year.
Popularity: 105,000 people can be and see the poppies of Ibrahim at the same time in the courtyard of the Mosque in Mecca.
Buddha Tooth
According to legend, one of the Buddha's disciples snatched this tooth from the teacher's funeral pyre. For eight centuries the relic was kept in India, and only then was it transported to Ceylon. In the 18th century, the Dalada Maligawa temple was erected in the city of Kandy, in which it is kept to this day.
In the tradition of Sri Lankan Buddhists, this tooth is considered a symbol of power and faith, which will be unshakable as long as the relic remains on the island. Nevertheless, the followers of Buddhism do not agree on whether this condition was observed throughout history or whether the Buddha's tooth was nevertheless exported from Ceylon several times (according to various versions, to Burma or India).
Popularity: annually in July-August, the Dalada Maligawa Temple hosts a special celebration in honor of the tooth of the Buddha, which gathers tens of thousands of participants.
Relics of Buddha
After the death of Buddha Shakyamuni was buried according to the Buddhist canon: his body was wrapped in 500 double shrouds and burned. After such a cremation of the enlightened one, only bones and two layers of tissue remained - the uppermost and the lowest.
As stated in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, representatives of eight regions of India claimed the possession of the relics and eventually divided them among themselves; each of the parts lay at the base of a stupa - a special structure for storing relics. Later, according to legend, these stupas were opened by Emperor Ashoka, who divided the relics into many parts (there is a version that there are 84,000).
Particles of Buddha's relics are now kept in many countries, including Russia. In November 2011, the Sri Lankan Ambassador to Russia handed them over to the former President of Kalmykia, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who in turn - to the central Buddhist temple of the republic, which became the only place in Europe where such a relic is kept.
Popularity: The total number of worshipers of the Buddha's relics is comparable to the total number of Buddhists in the world - about 500 million people.