Non-Catholics: question regarding the veneration of relics?

[Kouyate42]

I have a quick question for any non-Catholics.

I know that in the Catholic tradition, alongside the Orthodox Church traditions, place the veneration of relics and the bodies of various saints (and any remaining body parts also, including bone fragments) to be of great importance.
What does the non-Catholic/Orthodox church actually teach regarding relics and their veneration? I certainly was never told anything whilst in my Baptist churches, and I've never come across any sort of material which talk about them.

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

I have a quick question for any non-Catholics.

I know that in the Catholic tradition, alongside the Orthodox Church traditions, place the veneration of relics and the bodies of various saints (and any remaining body parts also, including bone fragments) to be of great importance.

What does the non-Catholic/Orthodox church actually teach regarding relics and their veneration? I certainly was never told anything whilst in my Baptist churches, and I've never come across any sort of material which talk about them.

The question is much more vast.
Let’s see whether I can put 3000 years of history in short.
We think of God in many ways but I highlight 2: God transcendent and God Immanent. In Genesis, it is called Elohim(the one who said one word and Light, Earth, the Universe all was done) and Yahweh(the one close to us, that make man with his hands, that walked in Paradise enjoying the breeze of the afternoon).
Now, when God called Abraham, he chose a People who, among polytheists (look: many idols (idol means image)), would be His People and know God as the Only One, see the wonderful Shemaa. (Islam took this idea and does not allow images)

Now, Jews are forbidden to represent God as it would be confused with idols. We see the Old Testament full of the fight polytheists and the Monotheist Jews.
Jesus came and no more God was the Transcendent, the unattainable One. He took our shape, the shape of Man. People could touch Him, and we still eat His Body and drink His Blood.

So, since the catacombs, we see images, the fish (Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Θεοῦ Υἱός, Σωτήρ), the good shepherd, and so on. So it went on, and it was not a discovery of the Eastern Churches. Then came the the Iconoclasts (see here). they came in the ideology of God Eloist, you should not have icons for you were “adoring idols” and “you cannot despict God”.

I realize that Eastern Churches exaggerate a little bit in the question of the number of images, but that is not heresy, it is taste. I have got a theory that hot countries (India, Italy) have a very colorful taste and cold countries (Germany, Japan) have more linear and simple (IKEA!) designs. See lorries in India.

There were wars and people died with the iconoclasts and with Reformation that put the hot countries of the south against the cold countries of the north it was the same. The cold countries did not understand the proliferation of images and so abolished them as protestant do. It is interesting how cold countries are protestant and abolished images.

Is it right or not? It depends on taste. My children have got posters of Bayern players in the wall and singers and surf. I gave a little money to Mother Teresa of Calcutta and She sent a postal thanking an with her signature. My wife framed it. But my wife framed also her great-grandmother’s marriage veil.

Why both? Because she loved both: the ancestor and Mother Theresa. That’s why: we love them, our saints.

Of course times change, and sincerely, relics of bones and hair are not for me. But in the old times, it was OK. A question of taste.

 

[cooterhein]

I have a quick question for any non-Catholics.

I know that in the Catholic tradition, alongside the Orthodox Church traditions, place the veneration of relics and the bodies of various saints (and any remaining body parts also, including bone fragments) to be of great importance.

What does the non-Catholic/Orthodox church actually teach regarding relics and their veneration? I certainly was never told anything whilst in my Baptist churches, and I've never come across any sort of material which talk about them.

It’s hard to make direct comparisons here- for Protestants, at least- because we don’t tend to love anyone that much, especially compared to how much Catholic saints (both real and legendary) are treated. With any given evangelist or theologian or reformer, the main focus is generally on what they wrote and the degree to which it’s useful for Christians in general. But then home life, preaching methods, and general relations with Christians of other denominations and creeds is taken into account. No one ever gets perfect marks from everyone- generally, the best you can hope for is to be remembered as someone that left behind useful material in writing while doing ok with your family life. There will be one or two people per generation that are pretty awe-inspiring in one or two categories, but no one’s perfect and everyone has some type of shortcoming- some serious ones come to mind right away among the reformers.

I guess my perspective is that human perfection tends to be an illusion or a myth, so there’s no point trying to elevate someone too high. Reminds me of that episode from Firefly- seems like anyone that had a statue made of 'em was one type of summ…(trailing off) or other. I think Protestants have less of a tendency to be hero-makers and more of a tendency to acknowledge reasons not to build a statue for someone, figuratively speaking.

 

[ltwin]

Many (most?? unless you’re Anglican or something) Protestants would not believe that relics have any sort of benefit for people who venerate them. Where this occurs, the fear would be that people are making idols out of such things.Also, Protestants would question the need for these relics and intercession of the saints in the first place. Jesus intercedes for us, why would we need to turn to anyone else.

 

[RaphaelJ]

Hmm, maybe it’s just me but I think that the practice of relics is very similar to certain ancient (and extremely scary) burial practices. Like, exhuming the dead after a period of time and celebrating (with the corpse). But either way, it is clear that the early Christians took special care of the body of martyrs and even collected their bones if it was buried in a grave for criminals. They normally buried them in the catacombs. This is, in a way, similar to our veneration of relics. The veneration of relics is very much connected to the veneration of saints (which is another matter altogether).

 

[x1980x]

Many (most?? unless you’re Anglican or something) Protestants would not believe that relics have any sort of benefit for people who venerate them. Where this occurs, the fear would be that people are making idols out of such things.Also, Protestants would question the need for these relics and intercession of the saints in the first place. Jesus intercedes for us, why would we need to turn to anyone else.

This

Relics, from the perspective of Protestants, based on my experience, is basically irrelevant. More liberal Protestants such as Anglicans may be ok with some people who DO venerate an simply say “to each his own”, and more conservative and/or low-church Protestants may consider any veneration of relics as objective sin.

The Protestant idea is that the person may approach God directly, without an intercessor of any kind. Relics kind of contradict this. The basic understanding is that relics don’t give any objective advantage, so why go to the bother of using them?

 

[Publisher]

This

Relics, from the perspective of Protestants, based on my experience, is basically irrelevant. More liberal Protestants such as Anglicans may be ok with some people who DO venerate an simply say “to each his own”, and more conservative and/or low-church Protestants may consider any veneration of relics as objective sin.

The Protestant idea is that the person may approach God directly, without an intercessor of any kind. Relics kind of contradict this. The basic understanding is that relics don’t give any objective advantage, so why go to the bother of using them?

Pretty much a Quaker understanding.

 

[GeorgeTheWild]

Many (most?? unless you’re Anglican or something) Protestants would not believe that relics have any sort of benefit for people who venerate them. Where this occurs, the fear would be that people are making idols out of such things.Also, Protestants would question the need for these relics and intercession of the saints in the first place. Jesus intercedes for us, why would we need to turn to anyone else.

I’d also add that many protestants are going to have a healthy skepticism of the authenticity of many relics.