Just weeks before his feastday, the relics of St. Nicholas of Myra were stolen from a church in France and destroyed by a man who claimed he committed the deed because he considered the veneration of relics to be a form of idol worship.The Daily Mail is reporting on the story of the theft of bone fragments attributed to Saint Nicholas which were taken from the Basilica of Saint-Nicolas-de-Port in Lorraine on November 2. The thief, who was later arrested, admitted to acting spontaneously out of a “desire to destroy” the relic because he believed devotion to bones to be a form of idol worship.
“Beyond the heritage value of this object, what touches us today is, above all, a profound attack on our history, our faith and the devotion of generations of pilgrims,” the priests from St. Nicholas Parish said.
Thankfully, according to a November 7 statement from the Association Connaissance et Renaissance de la Basilique, a group dedicated to preserving the building, the basilica’s main relic remains intact in its ornate reliquary.
The destroyed relic was stolen from another reliquary that was housed beneath a statue of the saint in the patronal chapel.
The theft occurred during a spate of arson and vandalism attacks upon Christian heritage sites that have been occurring throughout the country.
It also comes just three weeks before the basilica hosts its annual torchlight procession on December 5, the eve of the Feast of Saint Nicholas.
This crime is especially egregious because it was a fueled by a mistaken belief about the Church’s veneration of relics. She does not worship the earthly remains as if they were magical objects, but sees them as part of the body of a saintly person through whom Christ bestowed many graces upon His church and continues to do so now that they are glorified in heaven.
“We honor (dulia) the relics, statues, and images of the saints with a veneration that is directed toward the saints themselves, and in honoring the saints we honor Christ whose members they are (1 Cor. 12:27),” writes T. L. Frazer for Catholic Answers. “In fact, Protestants honor the relics of their dead when they visit or lay flowers on the graves of their loved ones. If a Catholic does something similar with respect to a saint to whom he may have no blood relation, he is accused of idolatry.”
As tragic as the incident in Lorraine was, the desecration did not destroy the only surviving earthly remains of St. Nicholas. Most of the bones traditionally attributed to the fourth-century bishop are preserved in Bari, Italy, with other substantial relics in Venice.
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