The Holy Foreskin of Jesus Christ,In Christian tradition, particularly Catholic and Orthodox traditi

The Holy Foreskin of Jesus Christ,In Christian tradition, particularly Catholic and Orthodox tradition, there are several venerated holy relics attributed to Jesus Christ.  For example, there is the Holy Grail, the Spear of Destiny, the Shroud of Turin, and even the Blood of Christ.  However, one of the oddest is the foreskin of Christ, also known as the “Holy Prepuce”.  Jesus was a Jew, and as a Jew would have been circumcised as an infant, an event that was even recorded in the Gospels of the New Testament.  However, like many other mundane items that once belonged to Jesus, apparently the left over foreskin was supposedly kept, protected, and venerated by generations of Christians throughout history.The first mention of the Holy Prepuce occurs in 800 AD when Emperor Charlemagne presented the foreskin as a gift to Pope Leo III.  Charlemagne claimed to have been given the foreskin by a visiting angel, although other sources state it was a gift from Byzantine Empress Irene.  For centuries the foreskin was venerated by pilgrims and the clergy, on display at the Lateran Basilica in Rome. However, over time a problem occurred. In the world of holy relics, there are enough Holy Grails to supply a large cocktail party and enough Blood of Christ to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool. In time other churches began producing their own Holy Foreskins, claiming their own was legitimate while all others are fake. One of the most popular was a foreskin purchased by King Baldwin I of Jerusalem.  It came from the Holy Land, so it surely had to be real. All told, there were 21 supposed Holy Foreskins, with each hosting church claiming that theirs was the real deal. Often miraculous claims were made about each foreskin, with each prepuce supposedly healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, and driving out demons from those possessed.  The problem of validating the real Holy Prepuce first occurred in the early 12th century, the monks of San Giovanni in Laterano, Rome asked Pope Innocent III to rule on the authenticity of their foreskin.  He refused.  Later in the 16th century Pope Clement VII declared the foreskin in the possession of the Monks of Charroux to be the authentic Holy Prepuce.  However the debate continued.  One interesting theory was proposed by the 17th century theologian Leo Allatius, who proposed that since the foreskin was a part of the Christ’s body, it would have ascended to Heaven with the rest of him.In 1900 the Catholic Church resolved the issue by declaring that all rival foreskins were frauds, and any further foreskin shenanigans would be punished by excommunication. By then most other Holy Foreskins had been destroyed or lost during the Protestant Reformation and during the French Revolution. As for the “authentic” foreskin, it was looted by a German soldier during the sack of Rome in 1527.  It remained hidden in the small Italian town of Calcata until 1557, when it was rediscovered.  Over the centuries it remain housed their, where pilgrims would routinely visit, with the Church approving its authenticity by offering ten year indulgences to visiting pilgrims.  In 1983 it was stolen by a local priest, and never seen again. -- source link
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