A priest’s lifelong devotion to St. Nicholas has led to his collection of holy relics and a pilgrimage site that is drawing Catholics and Orthodox Christians from around the Midwest.

Underlining the importance of relics in Catholic devotions, Father Joseph Marquis of Sacred Heart Byzantine Catholic Church in Livonia, Michigan, told the Register, “When God took on a tangible body, he sanctified the material world by entering into it and taking on a human body.” 

It is thus that Catholics revere, but do not worship, the human remains of saints made in the image of God, he added.

Sacred Heart parish has the largest collection of first-class relics in the Great Lakes State and one of the largest in the country, formally called All Saints Shrine. The largest collection of relics in the United States is found at St. Anthony’s Chapel in Pittsburgh, which is reputed to have 5,000, while the second-largest collection in the country is at St. Martha of Bethany parish in Morton Grove, Illinois, which has more than 3,100 different saints, collected and curated by Father Dennis O’Neill.

All Saints Shrine has 326 relics and was started a decade ago by Father Marquis, the parish’s pastor. Many saints beloved by the universal Church are found in the custom-made cabinets, donated by parishioners, lining the church in the suburbs of Detroit. Relics are each kept in a reliquary, some of which are fashioned from precious metals and stones. 

Sts. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea’s relics have left Father Marquis awestruck, as the disciples Joseph and Nicodemus took the Lord’s body and wrapped it in a linen shroud for burial in his tomb (John 19) on Good Friday. 

Well-known and lesser-known saints are represented, too. For example, figures from the Bible include: Sts. John the Baptist, Peter, Paul, Luke, Mark and Matthew. There is even a relic of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the form of a piece of her veil, along with a piece of the robe of the earthly father of Jesus Christ, St. Joseph. There are no human remains left anywhere of the Mother of God, due to her assumption, nor of her most-chaste spouse, by all historical records — though he likely died and was buried in Nazareth. 

Father Marquis told the Register that the shrine is increasingly a place of pilgrimage for Catholics and Orthodox Christians in the Midwest. “A great number of these relics are of martyrs: people who shed their blood for the faith. They are our elder brothers and sisters in the faith,” he said, “and a shining light for all of us.”

 

Venerated Remains

A relic, which is a word derived from the Latin for “remains,” is an object associated with a saint. It can be clothing, an item the person used, or even a part of a body. The original Christians frequently worshipped at the tombs of martyrs, even in the catacombs at Rome. Each altar has a fragment of a relic over which the Eucharist is confected during the Mass. Relics come in three classes. Those of the first degree are parts of a saint’s body, frequently bone. Second-degree relics are from clothing or items used during life. Third-degree relics are things that have been touched directly to a first-degree relic. 

Catholic doctrine teaches that only the Trinitarian God is worshipped and adored. Jesus Christ is the source of divine grace, while relics are not seen as having any special powers in and of themselves. Saints are honored and venerated, and their relics are respected as an extension of their lives. The relics of saints are not to be sold, according to canon law.

A 2017 instruction from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints reads: “Relics in the Church have always received particular veneration and attention because the body of the Blesseds and of the Saints, destined for the resurrection, has been on earth the living temple of the Holy Spirit and the instrument of their holiness, recognized by the Apostolic See through beatification and canonization.” They are not to be displayed to the faithful without a certificate from a Church authority guaranteeing their authenticity. Relics are preserved and can only be distributed by the Vatican congregation.

 

‘Like a Family Reunion’

At All Saints Shrine, there are first-class relics of Teresa of ávila, Thomas More, John Fisher, Padre Pio and Pope Pius X, in addition to lesser-known saints of the early Church, including the boy saint Tarcisius and St. Paul’s disciples Aquila and Priscilla. 

During the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, many people sought deliverance from the disease by praying to St. Corona, who was martyred along with her husband Victor during the second century after Christ, Father Marquis said. The All Saints Shrine has first-class relics of each of them.

 

Father Marquis has a decades-long devotion to St. Nicholas, who is especially revered among Catholics of the Byzantine Rite and the Orthodox faithful. As a boy, he prayed to St. Nicholas when his father was seriously ill in the 1950s. When a cure came, Father Marquis’ devotion to the saint was affirmed. As an adult, he long personified Santa Claus professionally in the annual Thanksgiving Day parade in Detroit.

 

“This collection of relics is like a family reunion,” Father Marquis told the Register. “Here, we have saints in heaven and on earth praying and worshipping God together. My own prayer life has multiplied exponentially.” Within a short span, he received more than 100 relics, mostly of saints of the first three centuries of the Church. “A friend told me,” he said, “these saints are coming to see you!” Soon, he had relics of Nicholas, too.

 

It was his effort to bring a relic of St. Nicholas to Michigan that provided the genesis for the shrine. He now has two first-class relics of the saint, in addition to a small vial of the oil that his remains exude from a sarcophagus in Bari, Italy. Each year, on May 9 (to commemorate his relics being moved from Myra, in Asia Minor, to Bari) and Dec. 6, the saint’s feast day, Father Marquis blesses parishioners with this holy liquid. 

But it is a relic of Pope St. John Paul II that has a special place in the collection. “God writes straight with crooked lines,” said Father Marquis about the authenticated first-class relic of the beloved Pontiff: his pericardium, the sac-like organ that surrounds and protects the heart. “It’s all in God’s providence, as far as I’m concerned,” he said of the relic now encased in a beautiful reliquary. In 2022, he appeared with Jesuit Father Mitch Pacwa to promote the veneration of this relic and others. Following their extensive television conversation, Father Pacwa blessed viewers, holding the reliquary aloft, saying, “May the Lord bless you through the intercession of St. John Paul,” while making the Sign of the Cross. 

 

Pilgrim’s Account

On April 5, a group of young adults came on pilgrimage to the shrine. Some came from as far away as Dayton and Cleveland, Ohio. They were accompanied by Fathers Vasyl Kupar and Myhailo Solianyk, as well as youth coordinator Rachel Pawluszka of the Byzantine Ruthenian Catholic Eparchy of Parma, Ohio. Pawluszka said that more such activities for young people are planned, which will include Catholics of both Eastern and Western traditions. Roman Catholic Sarah McGervey of Akron told the Register, “It’s a beautiful way to pray,” adding that she had never beheld so many relics in one place. 

 

Close to Christ

The significance of another relic at the shrine is not lost on Father Marquis either — with particular significance for Easter: a finger bone of St. Thomas. Scripture records that “Doubting” Thomas placed his hand into the wound on the side of the Risen Christ (John 20).

The priest said, “We can hardly come closer to Our Lord than that.”