Relics

His "Lionheart" is entombed separately from the rest of his body.

The gigantic preserved heart of a champion racehorse.

The first Russian Orthodox church in the Catholic city of Rome in almost a thousand years.

This Gothic-style church is reputedly built atop the remains of one of Jesus's apostles.

At the crypt of St. Mary of Eulogies and the Dead you are left alone to ponder mortality among piles of skulls.

The relics of one of Jesus' 12 apostles are enshrined in this Italian Basilica.

The not-quite-incorruptible St. Bernadette is perhaps the most beautiful of preserved saints—with a little help from Paris.

The odd depiction of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus is rooted in the Catholic Church's eradication of Catharism.

This sword isn't waiting for a king to pull it out. It was placed there by a saint.

Supposedly this Ethiopian chapel holds the Ark of the Covenant, guarded by virgins who cannot leave the building.

These blingy, baubled skeletons lie in glass boxes inside a baroque Bavarian church.

This magnificent museum claims to house the cranium of a disciple and the skull of a pope.

These jeweled relics have a scandalous and contested past.