Anastasia's Grail

by Mary Pearson

blood—only It retained the appearance of bread and wine. St. Jerome tells us that two cups were used at this moment—one is of silver and is very large. It was used to hold the wine for the passover meal before it was poured into the smaller chalice, made of agate, which Jesus held as He pronounced the words of consecration. This larger Cup remains in Antioch while the smaller one, believed to belong to St. Mark, was given to St. Peter, who took it to Rome with him. There it became the official Papal cup until the Valerian persecution, when this cup was entrusted by then Pope St. Sixtus ll to St. Lawrence, who fled with the cup to Huesca, Spain. Throughout the crusades the Knights Templar were charged with guarding the Valencia cup. Both Sixtus and St. Laurence gave their lives rather than reveal the whereabouts of this cup.’

  ‘Many people mistakenly believe that there are numerous possibilities for the cup Grail, and there were quite a few candidates by the sixteenth century, but most have been ruled out by archaeological study. Now the only credible remaining relics are the one in Valencia and the larger silver one in Antioch. The Valencia Chalice is still considered the official papal cup and has been used to celebrate the Mass by most popes, most recently by our present Pope, Benedict XVl, on July 9, 2006.’

  ‘One serious rival to the St. Laurence tradition—and this is where Joseph of Arimathea enters this particular line of inquiry—is the legend that Joseph of Arimathea brought the Grail-cup with him to England. Incidentally Joseph is also recorded as catching some of Jesus’ blood in this cup as it flowed from his side on the Cross. This may be an effort to account for Christ’s sweat in the true grail. This tale is derived from the writings of Robert de Boron, which maintain that the Grail was brought to Glastonbury, where also reside the bones of the legendary King Arthur.’

  ‘So a Chalice, or graal, is the Grail; the Chalice held the blood of Christ—either literally or in the form of consecrated wine; Joseph of Arimathea is credited with bringing this Grail cup to England; and It (if It was the Valencia Chalice) was guarded by the Knights Templar.’

  ‘Now, having introduced Joseph of Arimathea, we are lead to the second possible Grail, whose legend is also entangled with this individual—Mary Magdalene.’ (Arthur assumed a more aggressive stance during this segway, before returning to the ‘at-ease’ position he had maintained throughout the cup-grail presentation.)

  ‘In this grail legend we are presented with Mary Magdalene as the lover of Jesus Christ. It is contended that she bore a daughter who was fathered by Him. It is important to note that in this version of the Gospel, which is considered heretical by the Church, Christ was not God. He never maintained that he was God. Such claims were invented by the leaders of the Christian church in order to promote a male-dominated society. In truth, Jesus was involved in a form of Goddess worship, in which the only way for a man to commune with the divine (they refer to this as achieving ‘gnosis’ or special knowledge) was during sexual union with a woman. Mary Magdalene was of royal lineage, therefore her descendants were royal. In this legend she traveled to France, accompanied by Joseph of Arimathea, to establish the Merovingian dynasty. Her descendants who carried the Sang-Real (bloodline) of Jesus were guarded by the Knights Templar. This legend became widely known after the publication of the DaVinci Code and the release of the movie based upon this novel. Leonardo himself was supposed to have been a leader of the Priory of Scion, which headed the Knights Templar. In his painting of The Last Supper he was supposed to have revealed Mary Magdalene’s true relationship to Christ and the astonishing truth that all of Christianity was a hoax.’

  ‘So in this version, the Grail is the sang-real or bloodline of Jesus with Mary Magdalene, their descendants contain the blood of Jesus Christ. She was brought to France by Joseph of Arimathea, and her bloodline has allegedly been safeguarded by the Knights Templar.’

  ‘This brings us to the the third possible Grail—the Shroud of Turin.’ (Again Arthur assumed the more aggressive stance during this segway, before relaxing into his ‘at-ease’ position.) ‘We have only to read the synoptic Gospels to find Joseph of Arimathea involved with this version of the Grail. He probably purchased it. What is certain is that it was Joseph, with the assistance of Nicodemus who prepared Jesus for burial, and they laid Him in a tomb that belonged to Joseph. On the third day, Christians contend, He resurrected, leaving behind the linens which covered him: : a 14’ X 4’ cloth which was wrapped around Him, from feet to head, then back to feet and a separate face cloth, which the gospel of John tells us was found folded up in a different spot within the tomb.’

  ‘At some time, probably not immediately after the Resurrection Event, an image became visible upon the larger cloth. This image included unsmudged blood stains, which were found to be a photographic positive, on top of which was encoded the image of the Person Who had bled—only this image was a photographic negative. This body image was further found to possess both X-ray and 3-D characteristics. Such an image is not reproducible by any known means, whether ancient or modern, although by the use of particle physics and radiation, a lesser quality image with similar characteristics can be created in a nuclear physics laboratory. Such an image would have been formed if the Body within the Shroud were radiant and then disappeared, so that the image would have been encoded as the cloth fell through the place where the Body had been.’

  ‘The scope of this lecture cannot include a detailed discussion of the proofs of authenticity of this object, but I have taken the time to summarize these details, for you to study at your leisure.” She passed a handout to each member of the panel. “I will, however, outline a history of this Relic, as I have done with the others.’

  ‘After the Shroud was found in the empty tomb, it was brought to Edessa, specifically to Briteo Edessenorum (the royal palace of Edessa. Some scholars have noted that Briteo sounds like Britain and this may explain why the Grail was thought to have been brought there by Joseph of Arimathea). There It was given to King Abgar by St. Thaddeus/Jude, as had been promised by Jesus in a letter, when the same King had asked Him to come heal him of a severe skin disease—maybe leprosy.’

  ‘The Shroud was encased in a greille, or grill, for purposes of display. This greille containing the burial cloth of Jesus remained in Edessa for centuries, however it was holed up inside the top of the city gate for a very long time, to protect it during the time when Christians were persecuted. It resurfaced in the sixth century, and it was at this time that the first depictions of Jesus as we have come to see Him most frequently represented, with forked beard and long hair, began to appear. The earliest portrayals of Him were more Roman-looking, clean-shaven and short-haired and not made by those closest to Him. His followers, who were mostly Jews, didn’t believe in making images of God. ‘Edessa, now Moslim, sold the Shroud to the Eastern Orthodox Christians in the nine hundreds AD. It remained with them in Constantinople, where it was known as the Mandylion. In the middle of the fourth Crusade, in the year 1204, It was taken as spoils of war and became the property of Othon de la Roche. During this century the Shroud is thought to have been protected by the Knights Templar. Almost fifty Face Cloths copied from the Shroud have been found which were hidden by members of the Templars. They reportedly used these cloths, and most likely the Original, in their initiation and worship services. The Shroud publicly resurfaces in 1354, when It was displayed by de la Roche’s granddaughter, Jeanne de Vergy and her husband, Geoffrey de Charny, who was given It as a dowry when he married Jeanne. A pilgrim’s coin found in the Seine shows both the de Vergy and de Charny coats of arms and the Shroud. Jeanne passed the Shroud to her granddaughter, Margaret, who having no suitable heir, sold It to the House of Savoy.’

  ‘The Savoy family rose to become rulers of all Italy and were only deposed in 1946. When their last descendant, Umberto ll, died in 1983, he willed it to the Vatican. The Roman Catholic Church now owns this Relic.’

  ‘Suffice to say that the Burial cloth of Jesus Christ would have contained both His blood and His sweat; It was purchased by Joseph o
f Arimathea; It was guarded by the Knights Templar, several of whom were recorded as being executed for the heresy of worshiping a ‘bearded Face. Finally, the Shroud, by virtue of its display case-the grill- has been studied as a possibility of having been the True Grail.’

  (Once again Arthur assumed his more aggressive stance momentarily, relaxing it to the ‘at ease’ position.)

  “And so we have the greille, the graal and the sang-real. Now,” Stacy turned to the panel of judges, “as to our second question—whether it is plausible that each of these potential grails might have sparked crusades— of the Grail Chalice—why? The whereabouts of the most likely candidate was known at the time of the Crusades. In any event, It was only a cup, whatever It may have contained at one time. The Chalice-Grail would have had no special powers which weren’t based on fable. It, of itself, tells no story that would otherwise remain unknown.’

  ‘This is not the case with the other two potential grails. If true, the Mary Magdalene bloodline Grail would prove that all of Christianity as it has been preached for two thousand years is a