Page 49 - AECA.org.uk ¦ Koinonia 63

non-Protestant as possible. To that end baroque ?xtures and ?ttings
were imported wholesale from the continent, including relics and reli-
quaries. Although ecclesiastical tastes have changed somewhat after
Vatican II, many of these can still be seen.

In modern times a number of shrines have been restored or re-
constructed. Sometimes the relics have been found and replaced, as
with St Melangell in Wales. Elsewhere replacement relics have been ob-
tained from sources on the continent. A relic of St Richard of Chiches-
ter now reposes in his restored shrine in Chichester Cathedral. A small
part of the bones of St Pancras is now venerated at St Pancras Old
Church, a gift from San Pancrazio in Rome in 2010. The shrine of St
Alban was reconstructed from fragments in the 19th Century and re-
stored again in the 20th. And it now, once again, has and celebrates a
relic of its patron saint – a gift from the Church of St Pantaleon in Co-
logne, where part of the saint’s relics had been taken some time in the
middle ages.

So here we are back in the 21st Century. It seems to me that relics
of the saints have an enduring fascination, and their veneration is some-
thing that still has an important place in the life of Christians, east and
west, uniting us with the earliest Christians and the Church in every
age. We may be living in an age that some call secular or post-modern,
but relics remain as popular as ever, part of a living tradition which
Christians of many di?erent Churches can and do own and celebrate in
common.

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