Piece of the Holy Reed

In the Vatopedi Monastery there is another Serbian reliquary that has a hollow in the middle with a patriarchal cross. The Cross bears a strip of implanted Holy Reed along its entire length and width. Around the Cross there are in panels the relics of eponymous saints of our Church. This reliquary must have been donated to the Monastery by Serbian nobles.

The date of construction of the reliquary is attributed by researchers to the 16th century -17th century. However, it is very likely to be from the same era as the reliquary of the Holy Cross. No inscription or date has survived.

As is known, the Holy Reed is the reed that the Jews gave to the right hand of Christ, instead of a royal scepter, after they clothed him with a red cloak, instead of royal purple, wanting to mock him for supposedly being a king; because His life-giving and saving word did not fit into their doomed souls. With this reed they then struck him on the head, as the Evangelist Matthew Bookshops (chap. 27).