There has been a sharp rise in the volume and quality of Christian relics offered for sale on eBay recently. During the last two centuries, many monasteries, convents, religious houses, and even churches have shut their doors. The very oldest institutions often have relics to 'get off the books'. For financial reasons the inventory is sold at auction through highly reputable firms, as quickly as possible.  It also happens that sometimes noble families with close links to the Church are also from time to time in great financial need, especially because of the high succession tax in many European countries.  That’s when the holiest treasures end up on eBay.

Since European society in general is secularised, reliquaries are often considered just antiques, and sold without any consideration of their content.  Fortunately this usually allows the prizes to fall into the hands of the right people - folks who truly venerate the items and can afford proper security and insurance . In many cases, reliquaries were liquidated to collect money for a charity - the piece ends up on display in a more substantial museum. In some cases 'First class relics' go on tour, like rock stars, all over the world as triple insured air freight they climb up into the heights and closer to God? To my knowledge an airplane carrying first class relics has never crashed.

When you do a Google search for 'Biblical age relics for sale' today you find websites that are proffering all manner of antique discoveries from Israel and the Holy Land that are not at all religious in nature – Roman statuary and well preserved fishing boats.
Here is one of the biggest players in the game. This is Mr. William Kando, the son of the Arab merchant Iskandil Kando standing beside Randall Prince

It was this man’s father, Iskandil Kando who first purchased the Dead Sea Scrolls from Bedouin in 1947. William still possesses the remains of one large scroll of Genesis, which is conservatively valued at $35 million dollars. He also possesses numerous papyrus scroll fragments of biblical texts. A number of these were recently sold by him (or his agents) to Azuza Pacific University, and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.  Kando still has more fragments for sale – but they are very expensive.

Three Classifications of Christian Relics

Kando sells first class relics. Let me explain, there are three separate classifications of Christian relics.

1. First Class relics are parts of the bodies of the saints and instruments of the Passion of Our Lord.  (First class relics are rather rare, although from time to time hair of the saints can be found in the listings on eBay. See Donna Dolphy photos of Hair of the Saints in her Yorkville salon.)
2. Second Class relics are clothes worn or objects used by a saint during his life or, in case of a martyr, the instruments of his torture. Also replicae (copies) of relics of Our Lord, touched or held close to the original, fall into this category.  Most relics offered on Ebay are second class relics - for example pieces of cloth, stone fragments or dust from their tombs or shrines.
3. Third Class relics are objects or cloth touched to 1st or 2nd class relics.

Here’s a nice example of a third class relic,

Rare Crusader Coin
Comes from an absolute treasure trove of archaeological relics that have recently been found in the ancient city of Jaffa. An archaeological team from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) headed up by Martin Peilstöcker and Amit Re’em unearthed this extremely rare coin in the area of Jaffa’s flea market. It dates to the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099-1291), the feudal state created by the first Crusaders.

The Code of Canon Law (CIC § 1190) forbids the sale of relics.  However a Christian may buy or bid on reliquaries with good conscience as the Canon law does not forbid the faithful to buy reliquaries, even if it is their only intention to own a sacred relic. In any case they do something good: They preserve it from any further profanation! And often enough they also supported a religious community or a charity with their money.

French medieval history records that St. Louis (King Louis IX) was a devoted relic collector. In 1237, for 135.000 Livrees he bought the Crown of Thorns from Baldwin II, the Latin Emperor of Constantinople. Two years later, he also bought a fragment of the Holy Lance, the True Cross, the Holy Sponge and other relics of the Passion of Our Lord. He built the beautiful Sainte Chapelle in Paris as a worthy sanctuary to house them. All this happened with the consent of the Church, who later canonized St. Louis also because of his great devotion to the relics of Our Lord.

The word relic means rest when we translate it. Despite the bible forbidding the trafficking of relics, they do praise the powers and especially the healing abilities of the certain 'rests' or reliics. Here is one list I found. The Holy Bible discusses many relics,

1. Moses carried the rests of Joseph from Egypt.
2. God sayd to keep the rests of manna for remembering
3. Elisäus kept the cloak of Elias and separated the Water of the Jordan river with it.
4. A Woman touched the cloak of Jesus Christ and got healed immediately.
5. The shadow of St. Peter healed many sick people.
6. The napkins of the Apostle St. Paul also healed many suffering people.

Are there any relics in Canada?

Yes. Several. One of the most notable is at the Church of St. Anne de Beaupré in Quebec.

This time honoured ecclesiastical institution in Canada has long been privileged to accommodate a fragment of the wrist bone of St. Anne, about two or three inches in length, with the skin and flesh still adhering to the bone and showing the joint near the thumb. When the precious relic arrived in New York from Rome on May 1, 1892, a holy enthusiasm seized the busy metropolis. Crowds of the faithful began to flock to the church of St. Jean Baptiste, where the relic was temporarily deposited for the veneration of the faithful. It was a spectacle never before witnessed in the New World.

After obtaining this relic, the Redemptorist Fathers, guardians of the Shrine of St. Anne de Beaupré, also obtained the Saint’s forearm from which the wrist bone had been detached in 1892.  This relic had long been venerated in the Major Basilica of St. Paul- Outside-the-Walls in Rome.  But in May, 1960, this cherished desire of the Redemptorist Fathers was realized when the Benedictines in charge of the Basilica of St. Paul donated the entire forearm of  St. Anne to the Basilica of St. Anne de Beaupré.  This relic measures seven inches in length by two inches at the base.

Padre Pio relics are safely secured in a church in Woodbridge, but this might be a carefully guarded secret for there isn’t a lot to substantiate that rumour - story.
There was a story told by a furnace installation company of finding holy relics.
How many Toronto churches have relics either on display or safeguarded and listed among their chattel, protected by their congregations?

Toronto tourist attractions lists five, sponsored by a downtown Toronto bed and breakfast with British Navy relics. The Ten Commandments were on display in 2009 at The Royal Ontario Museum. When the Dead Sea Scrolls were on display at ROM, Dan Rahimi, the VP for gallery development said that the leather scroll was thought to date from between 30 and 1 B.C. This antiquity was discovered in one of 11 caves in 1952. It is not the oldest surviving copy but is the second-or-third-oldest. The display of the scroll was shown for one week and only 80 hours to protect the artifact from being damaged by light.
Also counted among the relics on display at this Toronto tourist attraction was the Nash Papyrus. The oldest known text of the Ten Commandments is the Nash Papyrus, discovered in Egypt. A Hebrew text, it dates to 150-100 BCE; the Ten Commandments scroll in this exhibition dates to 30-1 BCE. In the Nash Papyrus the Ten Commandments are followed by the start of the Shema Yisrael prayer ("Hear, O Israel...").

On Wednesday, June 17, 2009  A ‘first class’ relic was reported stolen from St. Michael's Catholic Cathedral in downtown Toronto, according to the Globe and Mail.
A security guard discovered the theft of a piece of the body of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, a French saint who died in 1897, between masses on May 31.