In the shadow of the sacred
[ by Charles Cameron — international theft and collection of sacred objects, icons, relics ]
image credit: © Chriusha / CC-BY-SA-3.0
The other day I posted an image of the stolen heart of St Laurence O’Toole – and today’s Irish Independent [h/t Michael Robinson] carried a story headlined ‘Relic hunter’ may be behind theft of heart:
Church officials now fear a “relic hunter” may be behind the theft of the heart of St Laurence O’Toole from Christ Church Cathedral last weekend.
And there are suggestions the same person may be responsible for last year’s theft of the True Cross from the Holy Cross Abbey in Co Tipperary as well as the attempted theft of a relic of St Brigid from a church in Dublin.
A relic hunter!
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I thought I ought to look into this a bit deeper, and what I found probably shouldn’t have surprised me, but did. A 2006 report from the Los Angeles Times headed Stolen icon travels a well-worn trail contained some interesting perspective — and striking statistics:
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the Yugoslav wars brought a flood of looted Christian works — including icons, chalices, crosses and gilded iconostases, or altar walls — into a black market already heavy with objects from places such as Eastern Europe and Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan drew an unprecedented wave of Muslim and pre-Islamic artifacts and cultural patrimony. Recently, investigators have noticed a surge in stolen works from Latin America and Southeast Asia, such as Buddhist ceremonial figures and pre-Columbian sacramental pieces.
“It’s a phenomenon that is now so widespread,” said Jennifer Thevenot, a spokeswoman for the Paris-based International Council of Museums, which works with Interpol and other agencies on art theft issues. “It affects all regions and all religions.”
Interpol and the U.N. cultural heritage agency UNESCO call stolen art the No. 3 illegal market behind drugs and arms trading.
Interpol statistics offer some guidance. For 2004 — the most recent data available — nearly 1,800 thefts were reported from places of worship, led by Italy and Russia. For the same period, there were 334 museum thefts and 291 from dealers or galleries.
Sacred beats secular in art theft, by almost 3 to 1!
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I think it’s pretty clear that you don’t collect a stolen icon or relic because you want to ingratiate yourself to the divine by making it a private object of your devotion when the religion in question considers theft a sin… and the iconoclasts of old would have been perfectly content to smash or burn examples of imagery that they deemed offensive to the divine command.
No — the collectors for whom relic hunters hunt relics (which is quite a tongue-twister, if you like such things) collect them because of the aura of the sacred which they exude – likely with a dash of sin for the thrill of it, much like a twist of angostura bitters in gin…
The shadow of the sacred…
