The Holy Relic from the Vatopedi Monastery for the first time in Thessaloniki in November

With the blessing of the Holy Great Monastery of Vatopedi, for the first time, the Holy Reed is being transported to Thessaloniki where it will remain for the blessing and sanctification of the faithful people from November 11 to 16, 2026, in the Holy Church of Saint Spyridon of Triandria.

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).