Appropriation of Virtue: The Invisible “Body” of Holy Objects in Christian Traditions

Abstract

The paper studies the strategy of appropriation of the virtue of sacred objects. This strategy includes a wide range of practices widespread in Christian traditions -from contact techniques of communicating with relics (touching, wearing on the body, eating/drinking a fragment, etc.) to distant practices (approximation, eye contact, directing the relic at the desired person, object or locus, etc.). These are manipulative practices targeted at using the virtue that is supposed to emanate from a sacred object for necessary purposes -from healing, protecting, attacking the enemy, to creating new contact relics and spreading the virtue in various material objects. As the author shows, such practices are grounded in the idea that sacred objects have a “second body”, the invisible virtue extended in space around an icon, relics or brandea. Contact with this ‘body” is believed to be highly effective; it is achieved through various ways of “distant touch”. The idea of the shrine as a permanent source of virtue that can be used, appropriated with the help of certain physical operations, laid ground for many actions that have been performed in various Christian traditions until now.