Because the early Church celebrated the Eucharist on the tombs of martyrs, and we still do. Every Orthodox altar contains relics of a martyr, usually sewn into the antimension, the consecrated cloth that sits on the altar table during the Divine Liturgy. Without an antimension, we can’t celebrate the Eucharist.
This isn’t superstition. It’s memory.
When Christians were being fed to lions in Rome or beheaded in Antioch, the faithful would gather at the tombs of the martyrs to celebrate Liturgy. They’d break bread on the very stones that covered the bodies of those who’d died for Christ. After the persecutions ended and churches were built openly, they built altars over martyrs’ graves. The great basilicas of Rome and Constantinople rose over the bones of Peter, Paul, and the apostles. The altar wasn’t just a table. It was a tomb.
We do the same thing now, just portably. The antimension (the word means “instead of a table” in Greek) is a cloth icon depicting Christ’s burial. It shows the four evangelists in the corners. And sewn into the center is a small piece of a martyr’s relic, a fragment of bone, usually. The bishop blesses it, signs it, and gives it to the priest. When we celebrate Liturgy, the priest unfolds the antimension on the altar, places the chalice and diskos on it, and the Eucharist happens there. Right there, with the martyrs.
The Whole Church Gathers
Here’s what we believe: the Church isn’t divided into the living and the dead. We’re one body. When we celebrate Liturgy, we’re not alone in that building. The saints are there. The Theotokos is there. The martyrs whose blood watered the Church are there. The antimension with its relic makes that visible. It says, “Look, we’re still doing what they did. We’re still one Church.”
There’s a passage in Revelation that haunts this practice. John sees “under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne” (Revelation 6:9). Under the altar. The martyrs and the Eucharist belong together. They gave their bodies for Christ. We receive His Body in the Eucharist. It’s the same sacrifice, the same love, the same communion.
This can sound strange if you grew up Baptist or Church of Christ, where the Lord’s Supper was crackers and grape juice passed down the pew. No altar, no priest, no relics. Just a memorial meal. But we believe something actually happens at the Liturgy. The bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ. The altar isn’t a table for symbols. It’s the place where heaven and earth meet, where the sacrifice of Calvary becomes present, where the whole Church, living and dead, gathers around the Lamb.
The relics aren’t magic. They don’t make the Eucharist work. But they witness to the incarnation. God took flesh. That flesh matters. The bodies of the saints matter. When St. Polycarp was burned at the stake in the second century, his people gathered his bones “more precious than jewels” and kept them. Not because bones have power in themselves, but because this particular body had been a temple of the Holy Spirit. This man had known the apostles. He’d been faithful unto death. His body would rise on the last day.
The Seventh Ecumenical Council in 787 defended the veneration of relics alongside icons. Same theology. We honor the image because we honor the person. We venerate the relic because we honor the saint. And we place relics in the altar because the Eucharist is the center of the Church’s life, and the martyrs are the foundation of the Church’s witness.
If you visit St. Michael’s, you won’t see the relic. It’s sewn into the antimension, which stays folded on the altar most of the time. The priest unfolds it during Liturgy. But it’s there. Some martyr from the early centuries, whose name we might not even know, is present with us every time we celebrate. That’s not morbid. It’s family.
Catholics also place relics in altars, though their theology around relics got tangled up with indulgences and miracle-working in ways that feel different from our practice. Protestants mostly abandoned relics entirely, seeing them as superstitious holdovers. We kept them because we never stopped believing that the body matters, that the saints are alive, that the Church is one across time and death.
Next time you’re at Liturgy, watch when the priest unfolds the antimension. He does it carefully, reverently. He’s opening a window. The martyrs are joining us. The whole Church is gathering. And we’re about to do what Christians have done since the beginning: receive the Body and Blood of Christ in the presence of those who loved Him unto death.
