Paris 2019- Week One

Or, “Death and Dying in the Catholic Canon”

We have been in Paris for approximately 56 hours at the time I’m writing this post, and to preface my thoughts on death in Catholicism, I need to take a moment to praise the city. It is a gorgeous maze of urban splendor with superbly designed/implemented planning. I cannot stress this enough. That being said, it is wonderfully easy to lose yourself among the sandstone and the Seine. It is, however, difficult to wander the streets of Paris without happening upon a church.

Hidden among the cobblestones and mansard roofs of the City of Light, there are 147 catholic churches. This is a little higher than average for a city of Paris’ size, but what she lacks in quantity she more than makes up for in quality. Aside from the Vatican, Paris arguably contains the most widely recognized (and important) catholic churches in the world. To understand where I’m going with this, I need to give you all some background on the Catholic Church, and more importantly, the history of relics.

Alright girls and gays, let’s talk religion and body parts.

The Catholic Church has always held a somewhat gruesome fascination with body parts; after all, the evidence of the miracles of Jesus were often the healed bodies of the sick and dying. An important and venerated part of the construction of a prominent catholic church is the presence of a relic in the space. Relics are believed to be sacred and mystical objects, and they add credibility and sanctity to a place of worship. The word ‘relic’ itself is derived from the Latin word meaning ‘remains.’ There are multiple senses of this, but you can see where I’m headed here, right? Relics are most often the body parts of Holy people, usually saints. Believed to have powerful, miraculous effects, relics and the keeping of them in Catholicism rose to its height of popularity during the medieval period. Cathedrals and churches continued to collect relics long after the close of the dark ages, and the keeping of these artifacts became an elevated art form* in and of itself.

Paris holds some of the most important relics in the Catholic religion. For example, the Crown of Thorns and a piece of the True Cross were previously stored in le Sainte-Chapelle as an example of the breadth and power of Louis IX. During the French Revolution, all of Sainte-Chapelle’s relics were moved to Notre Dame, which held a number of relics from both Saint Denis and Saint Genevieve as well. The Crown of Thorns was saved from the fire, as was one of the pieces of the True Cross, but the fate of the relics of St. Genevieve and St. Denis is currently unknown. These are a few of Paris’ well-known relics, but many of the city’s churches have their own caches of lesser known bits and pieces.

The Church of Saint Severin, situated on a street of the same name, is a gorgeous building with soaring vaults and radiant stained glass windows. Tucked away in a dusty corner lays a chest with a collection of bones. That display is what inspired this blog post; the chest is almost at the exit, and those visiting the church could just as easily miss its small treasure. Claiming to be the bones of Saint Ursula and a few bits of her (purportedly) thousands of virgin handmaidens, the chest is quietly reverent and loudly creepy.

Oh, and one more fun fact about relics and their popularity- for awhile, churches had to monitor holy men and women, especially if they were terminally ill. Care to guess why?

The trafficking of relics was so lucrative that there was a very real risk of potential Saints being murdered or prematurely dismembered in order for their parts to be sold.

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Stay tuned for more on my somewhat creepy excursions into the chapels of Paris and the relics they hold.

* ‘reliquaries’