[jas3]

So no, I don't think that most of the relics are fraudulent.

Have you ever been to Italy? Just about every church has a part of the "true" cross or a swatch of an article of clothing of the Virgin Mary. The sum total of all the wood chips and fabrics would be several tons in weight. I'm sure that MOST (if not all) of these relics are fake. And unlike the Rembrandt Project, which has done a reasonably good job of authenticating works, how can one authenticate a swatch of fabric or a piece of wood as being the real thing?

jas3

[Mrs. Don-o]

I read somewhere (sorry, I couldn't find it in Google) that the many, many relics of the True Cross are mostly mere splinters of wood, and that a modern estimate of their total aggregate weight comes to about 70 kilograms. Which is not too bad as a ballpark estimate of the weight of a cross.

In any case, we know from hsitory that the ermpoeror Constantine's mother, Helena Augusta, found the remains of Christ's cross on her quest to the province of Palestine in 327-328 AD. You may be skeptical about this, but it is as well-attested historically as anything we know about the ancient world, e.g. Julius Caesar's war in Gaul.