Deutschland, Deutschland, Ja Ja Ja!: Holy Shirt of Trier

As promised, your shirt blog. The Trier Dom houses what is thought to be a robe/shirt/tunic worn by Jesus Himself. For hundreds of years the shirt has been a pilgrimage sight for people all around the world. Skye studies nineteenth century German history and wrote his masters thesis on pilgrimages to the shirt in 1844 and 1891. His dissertation will be somewhat similar. The shirt pilgrimages aren’t a set amount of years apart like others. In the 1900s the shirt pilgrimages were in 1933, 1959 and 1996 (which was the last one in the 1900s). The next one was…yep, you guessed it…last month! In 2012! So not only do we get to LIVE in Trier during the rare pilgrimage, but it was the first pilgrimage in the 21st century! It’s like we’re making history while Skye writes about history. Such a God-thing, I think!

Here is a bit of history about it. Historians believe that in 313 Helena (Constantine the Great’s mother) brought the shirt to Trier as a relic. It remains a relic today and the first pilgrimage in 1512 attracted only a small amount of people (mostly around Trier) and the highest number of pilgrams was in 1933 with over two million people. Hundreds of medals, ribbons, pins, postcards and more are made to commemorate each pilgrimage, and those are some of the things Skye gets to see at the archives! This year they had an entire store full that they put right in front of where you exit the church (so you couldn't miss it). They had magnets, candles, shirts, bags, books, pens, pins, stickers, medals, and much much more!

How it works (at least, in the 2012 pilgrimage): They built a temporary building in front of the Dom to guide the lines into the church, that’s basically where the lines started. Then you walk in and stand in line all the way up the center isle to the case holding the shirt in front of the altar. Then you exit through a back side door. This line is constantly moving. There were attendants by the shirt at all times to see that people kept moving. If it wasn’t busy, they may let you stay longer. The display was open from 9am to 9pm with a public prayer ceremony to begin each day and a closing ceremony to end each day (this is the first year they have done that).

Not only that, but there were events and stations to see and participate in all over Trier having to do with the shirt. For example, in front of Constantine’s basilica they displayed a huge statue-like monument of the shirt. It was made by unemployed people in Trier, and you could donate a certain amount of money and you would get a letter ‘A’ (standing for Aktion Arbeit, meaning action for workers, for unemployed workers), you could write a message on the ‘A’ then hang it on the shirt monument. Once the pilgrimage was over, they took it to the top of one of the hills around Trier to commemorate the pilgrimage of 2012.

Opening day Holly was visiting so she got to experience it with us! Since it’s something Skye studies we made sure to be front and center at as many main events as we could. The opening service began at 2:30. We arrived at about 11:30 and were 10th or so in line. While we were waiting for the doors to be opened, one of the pilgrimage groups (church or school groups would travel to Trier together to see it, a few even traveled from another town on foot!) began singing hymns in German, and everyone around us knew them and began singing them too. That was kinda cool! 1:30 rolled around and they finally let us in. They told us not to run because there was room for everyone, but we needed a good seat so we didn’t run but we did hustle! The waiting paid off and we were in pretty awesome seats. We couldn't see the shirt but it would have been hard for anyone to see from their seat because it lays flat inside a case and only the top of the case is glass (also it was covered at the beginning of the ceremony).

While we continued to wait a man led the audience in a couple of the main pilgrimage songs so we could learn and sing them well since the ceremony would all be televised. haha.

The ceremony was nice. It was a mass and they unveiled the shirt. Papal delegate Cardinal Marc Ouellet (represents the pope in Germany) led the mass and there were tons of clergy present. Even the Pope wrote a letter that was read aloud.

Once service was over we all stood in line for the procession, this is where the good seats also came in handy because we didn’t have to wait too long. There were 6000 people at the ceremony!

We did make it on TV, by the way! We have a copy of the dvd, Skye’s archive gave it to him. We also made the front page of the pilgrimage paper while we were standing in line, it’s just the back of our heads, but still pretty cool!

The pilgrimage lasted 4 weeks. Skye went every day and many times sat to watch for research purposes.

The shirt looks like leather, but it’s not. It’s brown and large. It was the robe or tunic that went under the main robe. So I guess it’s more like a fruit of the loom undershirt! haha. It’s very long and the word “shirt” is kind of odd for it considering our modern day shirt. At some point they added a lining to try to hold it together as it was falling apart pretty badly. This was some sort of silk and can be seen pretty clearly when you look at it.

We of course ended the 4 weeks the same way we began them attending the final closing ceremony. It was in the evening and we of course went a couple hours early. We got an even better spot this time than the opening ceremony! The service wasn’t as good as the opening one, but they had a choir made up of people from all over Europe. They were fantastic and succeeded in giving me the chills when they majestically sang the Hallelujah Chorus!

Ok, ok, let’s get down to it….the question that’s burning inside all of you. Is it real? Well…..if you want the truth, you’ll have to ask Jesus yourself! But a recent fabric test in Switzerland can tell you that it is indeed possible for it to be as old as they say it is. And that, my friends, is all we can say for sure! I personally never felt much of an emotional connection when I saw the shirt, though many people did, but the thought that it could have slightly possibly been Jesus’ was powerful.