ABSTRACT
Between the fourth and the sixth centuries, the Holy Land emerged from a relative obscurity to become a spiritual focus of the Byzantine empire. Through pilgrimage to the holy places or through contact with the holy in the form of holy people, living or dead, and through objects associated with the holy, Christians sought intimacy with the divine for personal reasons: faith, for healing and penance, for advice and revelation. One of the ways in which the east approached Byzantium, or, perhaps more accurately, Byzantium appropriated the east, was through the appre hending, movement and transmission of objects associated with the holy - Christian relics. The eastern provinces were despoiled methodically and enthusiastically, for the benefit of the New Rome, for they held the most ancient and venerable relics, the leavings of Christ, the Virgin, and a multitude of Old and New Testament figures.
