From the Holy Trinity Monastery in the city of Solikamsk to the capital of the Republic of Kalmykia, Elista, they will bring a particle of the Lord's Crown of Thorns, with which His head was crowned on the eve of the crucifixion. According to the press service of the Elista and Kalmyk dioceses, the stay of the reliquary with the shrine in the republic became possible thanks to an agreement between two archpastors: the local ruling bishop Archbishop Justinian and Archbishop Zosima of Solikamsk and Chusovo. The revered relic will be open for worship in the republican center, as well as transported through a number of regional centers of Kalmykia, where everyone can kiss it. The first historical evidence of the Crown of Thorns laid by the tormentors on the head of Jesus Christ is dated 409. In that era, the precious artifact resided in Jerusalem, where Christian pilgrims flocked from all over the inhabited world. The most dignified and influential of their number could receive separate thorns from the crown as a spiritual gift. Later, in 1063, the Crown of Thorns was transported to the Imperial Palace of Constantinople - and after the sack of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by the crusaders, the shrine was taken to Paris, to Notre Dame Cathedral where it remains to this day. The thorns taken from the crown and their fragments remained in different cities and countries, being for the Christian believers precious evidence of the Savior's torment for the sins of the world.
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