Sainte Couronne
The Holy Crown is the crown of thorns on the head of Christ before his crucifixion.
Summary |
St. John recalls that the Roman soldiers on the night of Thursday to Friday, mocked Christ and his kingship by donning a crown adorned with thorns. Just before climbing the patibulum of the cross on his back on Calvary , Jesus suffered bullying and violence of the Roman soldiers. Half unconscious, then he collapsed on a sidewalk stone, wet with his own blood. Roman soldiers found very funny that a Jew from the country can claim to be king. So they threw him on their shoulders a long dress and placed a stick in his hand as a scepter. To complete their disguise, they needed a crown. Flexible branches covered with long thorns (commonly used to attach packet firewood) were woven to give them the shape of a crown, and were then embedded in his scalp that caused him to bleed profusely.
The crown through History
From Jerusalem to Byzantium (I-XII century)
According to tradition, the Crown was reverently kept and venerated. However, according to various testimonies, thorns were scattered over the centuries by donations or by the emperors of Byzantium, either by the kings of France. There are about 70, the same kind, who claim it originated. Many stories, including pilgrims to Jerusalem in the fourth century have reported the existence of the Holy Crown. The allusion to the crown of thorns and the instruments of the Passion of Christ during the persecution of the early centuries is perhaps not decisive. Already in 409, St. Paulinus of Nola mentioned among the sacred relics of the basilica of Mount Zion in Jerusalem. It is these same relics, which are transferred to the seventh century Byzantium in the imperial chapel, for shelter looting Arab and Persian. Thus, the relic, whose authenticity could not be verified, was sent to Constantinople in the treasury of Byzantine emperors.
In reality we know the exact date of his transfer to Constantinople. Without totally interrupted, its history darkened for a time. It is certain that it reappears in Constantinople before the middle of the tenth century, since a fragment, named, is enclosed in a reliquary of gold enamel inscribed the name of "the Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, mounted on 913 the throne. " This shrine was made in Constantinople and reported after the Fourth Crusade in Germany by the knight Ulrich von Ulmen at Limburg-on-the-Lahn. Thus, from the middle of the tenth century, as evidenced by Constantine VII in his Treatise of Ceremonies, the Eastern emperors were able to assemble an impressive collection of relics of the Passion, the number had yet to grow under their successors. They were then gradually grouped into one of the chapels palate, the Virgin, called the Lighthouse. It is the sacred place for pilgrims western and eastern conjured the eleventh and twelfth centuries. This, too, that Nicolas Mesarites , Keeper of the chapels of the Sacred Treasure Palace of Constantinople in 1200, could watch them daily. In a manuscript he left the description of the ten most prestigious of them with the Holy Crown "The first to offer himself to the veneration" 'he writes, "is the crown of thorns, yet green and intact, for having touched the head of Christ Sovereign, she took part in incorruption ... It is not rude in appearance, or hurtful or painful to the contract ... and if we get to touch It is that flexibility and softness. Its blooms are not like those hedges terminating the vines, as the thieves do their robbery, they shoot at the edge of the tunic and her bangs, or even flay and injure the ankle of the walker and hang it their bloody ferocious spines: no, certainly not, but they are like the flowers of incense tree, which at birth the appearance of tiny shoots, like the willow catkins, which appear as buds.
The Crown at the time of the Latin Empire of the East (thirteenth century)
After the sack of Constantinople in 1204, the Crusaders founded the Latin Empire of the East which existed until 1261. With other relics, following a loan, the Holy Crown was pledging with Venetian bankers by Roman emperors in the thirteenth century, notably by Baldwin II of Courtenay.
The crown of the thirteenth century to the present
A few years later, St. Louis wished to purchase many relics including Christ-the Holy Crown (St. Louis table venerating the holy crown Photos of the Holy Crown
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