Relics are the physical remains of saints, their bones, hair, or clothing, that the Church preserves and venerates. They’re not good luck charms. They’re not magical objects. They’re tangible connections to men and women who became so united to Christ that even their bodies radiated His grace.
If you’re coming from a Protestant background, this probably sounds strange. Maybe even troubling. But here’s the thing: Orthodox Christians don’t worship relics any more than you worship your grandmother’s wedding ring. We venerate them. That’s a different word for a different action. When you kiss a photo of someone you love, you’re not kissing paper and ink. You’re expressing love for the person in the photo. Same principle.
Why Bodies Matter
The Orthodox Church takes the body seriously. We believe God became flesh in Jesus Christ. Real flesh. Real body. And when God took on human nature, He didn’t just borrow it for thirty-three years and give it back. The Incarnation changed everything. Matter can now bear grace. Bodies can be sanctified. Your body isn’t just a shell you’re stuck with until you die and your soul floats off to heaven. Your body is you, and it’s destined for resurrection.
The saints proved this. Their bodies became temples of the Holy Spirit during their lives. After death, God often worked miracles through their remains. This isn’t some medieval superstition. It’s in Scripture. When a dead man’s body touched the bones of the prophet Elisha, the man came back to life (2 Kings 13:21). People were healed by touching the hem of Christ’s garment. Handkerchiefs that had touched St. Paul’s skin healed the sick (Acts 19:11-12). God uses physical things to convey His grace. He always has.
How We Use Relics
Every time we celebrate the Divine Liturgy, relics are present. Sewn into the antimension, that decorated cloth the priest unfolds on the altar, is a tiny relic, usually from a martyr. The antimension sits under the chalice and diskos during the consecration. So every Liturgy connects us physically to the saints who died rather than deny Christ. We’re celebrating on their graves, in a sense. The early Christians did this literally, gathering in the catacombs to celebrate the Eucharist over the tombs of martyrs. We continue the practice.
Some parishes have relics in their altars. Others keep them in special cases called reliquaries. On feast days, relics might be brought out for veneration. You can kiss them, just as you’d kiss an icon. The honor you show goes through the relic to the saint, and from the saint to God. It’s all about relationship, not magic.
What This Looks Like in Texas
St. Raphael of Brooklyn served as the first Orthodox bishop consecrated in North America. He’s buried at the Antiochian Village in Pennsylvania, and his relics have been placed in a hand-carved reliquary there. When parishes receive relics of saints for veneration, sometimes they travel, sometimes they’re permanently housed, it’s a big deal. People line up to venerate them. Not because the bone itself has power, but because that bone belonged to someone who loved Christ so much that God’s grace still flows through their memory and their physical remains.
Your Baptist relatives might think this is weird. That’s okay. It probably is weird if you’ve been taught that the physical and spiritual are separate realms. But Orthodoxy doesn’t split reality that way. We’re more Hebrew than Greek in our thinking. Body and soul together. Heaven and earth joined. The Incarnation proved that the two can meet.
A Living Connection
When you venerate a relic, you’re not doing something superstitious. You’re acknowledging that the person who once inhabited that body is alive in Christ right now, praying for you. You’re recognizing that the communion of saints isn’t just a nice phrase in the Creed. It’s reality. The Church includes both the living and the dead, and we’re all connected in Christ’s Body.
Relics remind us that holiness isn’t abstract. It’s concrete. It transforms real people with real bodies in real places. And those bodies, even after death, bear witness to the resurrection that’s coming for all of us. If you want to understand this better, come to a service when relics are present for veneration. Watch how people approach them. You’ll see reverence, not superstition. Love, not fear. And maybe you’ll begin to see why the Church has treasured these physical connections to the saints for two thousand years.
