It occurs to me, in light of the original subject of this thread, that another one of those gestures that ought to be made is that the Shroud of Turin, which I certainly believe to by the burial shroud of Christ, bearing his blood - the "Sangraal", the TRUE "Holy Grail", taken by the Crusaders from Constantinople in the sack of 1204, should be returned by the Pope to the Ecumenical Patriarch at Constantinople.
I have come to be convinced that the Shroud, called "of Turin", is the burial shroud of Christ, and bears his blood, and that the Oviedo cloth in Spain was the cloth that covered his head while preparing him for burial. I believe that these were the actual burial cloths that John spoke of in his Gospel, and that the powerful image of Jesus burnt into the tissue was left by God to his immediate followers, so that their consternation and horror at finding the empty turn would be instantly transformed into joy, wonder, and an urgent desire to run forth and proclaim to the world "Christ is risen!"
After all, how would they know that the body was not stolen?
By Jesus' appearance, of course.
But since I believe that God left that Shroud, they knew - those who went to the tomb and found it empty - even BEFORE they saw Jesus. For Jesus left THAT for them.
Indeed, since I believe that the Shroud is authentic, I think it is the only actual DOCUMENT left by Jesus of Nazareth. He didn't write a word, but he DID imprint that cloth with that miraculous image, and God DID preserve it for 20 centuries, even through a fire, and countless wars.
Why?
The Almighty has its purposes.
I believe that the Shroud of Turin is the Holy Grail, the most sacred relic on earth, because Christ INTENDED to leave it to us.
It was stolen from Constantinople in the terrible sack that embittered East and West, and that the Greek Orthodox still remember.
We cannot revive the ancient dead or rebuild the ancient walls. But we CAN atone for the sin of the sack, and make a powerful statement about the IMPORTANCE to Catholicism of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the NEED to understand, to resolve all of our issues from history, to forgive, and to reunify, by giving the Holy Grail BACK to Constantinople, where it lawfully belongs.
It is the right thing to do.
And if done after an exhaustive new scientific study of the Grail that demonstrated its age and mystery, and put it on the front pages of the world, the SIGNIFICANCE of Rome's return of the Grail to the Ecumenical Patriarch would be seen and understood. "This is the holiest relic in Christendom, the Holy Grail containing the actual Blood of Christ, the one document that Jesus intended to leave us. It was yours, and our knights wrongly took it from you long ago in another time and age. This was wrong, and by returning to you the holiest relic in Christendom, for your safekeeping, we are making such atonement for that wrong as can be made these 800 years later. But we do not believe that in rendering this holy burial Shroud of Our Lord, containing His blood, to your care that this is passing out of the Catholic Church. No indeed. By this we recognize that you too are the Catholic Church, and we look forward with hope and joy to the day when our disputes and differences can be full and truly resolved, and we are all fully aware that whether the Shroud reposes in Torino or in Constantinople, it reposes within the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, founded by Christ to endure for all time, unto the end of the world. Amen.'
Obviously I should not be the Pope's speechwriter.
But that would be the right thing to do.
It would be the healing thing to do.
It would be the next step on a long path that must eventually lead to an Ecumenical Council of the Church, Eastern and Western, out of which comes a united Church in full communion.
A mere piece of cloth, though it be the Holy Grail itself, is a small downpayment for such a rich reward.
That's what I think.
There are Orthodox who believe that it is genuine, and those who believe that it is not. I have personally only heard one thing that is convincing at all, and that is the argument that the Orthodox tradition of having a tapestry with an icon of Christ (the epitaphios), which is then taken in procession in Holy Week, may be the remnant of the veneration of the Shroud itself.
And yet, given the flowering of hymnology throughout the Byzantine era, one would have expected that if the Shroud was being so venerated, the hymnology surrounding this would have grown to include specific discussions and reflections on having the actual Shroud of Christ. Every other holy object of veneration -- from the True Cross to the Cincture of the Theotokos -- has this richness of tradition. If the veneration of the Shroud was a living reality, it is inexplicable to me that the silence in our Church's hymnology and writings would be so deafening.
Perhaps Kolokotronis can comment from the Greek perspective -- I may be ignorant of a crystal-clear and well-documented tradition in the Orthodox Church.
While it is proper for such relics, and others, that have been removed from their original locations, to be returned to those original locations out of sense of justice and good will, without any fear that they leave the Church, but rather stay in her bosom, I am not sure than any relics -- including the recently returned ones -- are safe in Constantinople. The Greek Christian community there is shrinking and numbers only a couple of thousand souls, surrounded by an officially secular but nonetheless Muslim country (let's not forget that Kosovo Albanians consider themselves secular -- that fact by itself didn't stop them from destroying or damaging over one hundred Kosovo's centuries old and irreplaceable art of Christian shrines there).
Such relics and treasures of our Christian past should be in the safest possible place. The Shroud itself survived several fires, but why tempt the fate?