Invisible holy relics. Relics and materials inserted in medieval reliquary crosses based on the data from comprehensive analytical studies

The paper reviews fragments of relics and materials from 14 closed Medieval Russia reliquary crosses found at unfortified settlements of Suzdal Opolye and in Novgorod. These fragments were studied with the use of modern methods of neutron tomography, optical microscopy, infrared microscopy, gas chromatography in the laboratories of the ‘The Kurchatov Institute' National Research Center. The results obtained reveal that the tradition of inserting relics was not rigid, there were no established rules for selecting holy relics for reliquary crosses. Besides physical remains such as human bones and hair, parts of wood and cloth were inserted as well; a mixture of wax and mastic resin was used to seal cross compartments. Inserted relics could be lost and replaced when reliquary crosses were in use. Despite production of crosses as standardized items, relics inserted in them were individual. The laboratory studies of these reliquary crosses confirm their functional use as reliquaries in remote areas of the Medieval Christian oecumene as well as veneration of these ‘portable' sacred objects in the northeastern parts of Medieval Russia in the twelfth-thirteenth centuries which was typical for the entire Christian World.