Free Republic

Archaeologists digging around an ancient church in Turkey say they’ve made a startling discovery and unearthed a piece of the cross that used to crucify Jesus. The diggers found a stone chest this week and inside were several relics believed to be tied to the crucifixion. Among them was a piece of the actual cross upon which Jesus was nailed, one historian with Turkey’s Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts said in the Hurriyet Daily News.

Archeologists conducting excavations at the site of a church in Turkey have unearthed a stone chest containing a relic that may be part of the cross on which Jesus was crucified. The items were discovered during a large-scale excavation at the Balatlar Church, which was built in A.D. 660 near the Black Sea, Today's Zaman reported. Professor Gülgün Köroğlu, an associate professor at Turkey's Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University and excavation leader, told the newspaper the artifacts are linked to Jesus' crucifixion.

The True Cross Separating Myth from History Jan Willem Drijvers In the days of Constantine the Great, the cross on which Jesus died was “rediscovered” in Jerusalem. Tradition gives Constantine’s mother, Helena, full credit for the find. Today, visitors to Jerusalem are shown the very spot, in a cistern beneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where the empress is said to have unearthed not only the true cross, but the nails that punctured Jesus’ hands and feet, the crosses of the two thieves who died beside Jesus, and the plaque, naming Jesus “King of the Jews,” that hung on...