What is The Holy Grail?
For Christians the Holy Grail is, and always has been, the cup used by Jesus to consecrate the wine at the Last Supper, the same cup that Joseph of Arimathea used to collect the blood of Christ at the crucifixion. The first fact is a biblical reality, the second a mystical story maintained for centuries, today we know that Jesus used a cup for consecration and that this cup is an object of worship.
Literary Holy Grail
The story of the Holy Grail has inspired numerous novels, plays and movies, the story of its search begins in 1099, with the Templars, but expands in the Middle Ages, the first book that I know of is “The Demand for the Holy Grail” , by an unknown author, originally written in French, but published in Spanish in Toledo in 1515, where he details the adventures of King Arthur and his knights, the theme is taken up by Furnival in “The History of the Holly Grail” in 1861, by Evans in “In Quest of Holy Grail” 1898.
The remembered film “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” with Harrison Ford, shows us a large number of possible grails, guarded by an immortal Templar in Petra, Jordan, but in 1996, Lawrence Gardner in his work “The Inheritance of the Holy Grail” raises the Grail as the blood of Jesus Christ, giving a “return” to the relationship of Jesus with Mary Magdalene, an idea that is taken by Dan Brown in 2003 to write “The Da Vinci Code”.
The remembered film “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” with Harrison Ford, shows us a large number of possible grails, guarded by an immortal Templar in Petra, Jordan, but in 1996, Lawrence Gardner in his work “The Inheritance of the Holy Grail” raises the Grail as the blood of Jesus Christ, giving a “return” to the relationship of Jesus with Mary Magdalene, an idea that is taken by Dan Brown in 2003 to write “The Da Vinci Code”.
The Holy Grail in Spain
Many scholars believe that the Cenacle (the room in which the Last Supper took place) and the Holy Chalice were owned by the family of Saint Mark, the evangelist, who acted as interpreter for Saint Peter in Rome. Let us remember that Saint Mark and Saint Peter was very friendly, so it is logical that Saint Mark gave the Holy Cup to Saint Peter, since it was very important for the first Christians to use relics in the liturgy and Peter was the head of the Church.
The Spanish tradition affirms that Saint Peter took the Holy Chalice with him to Rome, to be used in the liturgy, until the persecution of Valerian, in the year 258, when Pope Saint Sixtus II to prevent the precious relic from falling into the hands of the Romans, he entrusted the cup to his treasurer and deacon, San Lorenzo, who commissioned a Spanish soldier to take it to Huesca, Spain, where his family would take care of it.
For this reason, the Chapel of the Holy Grail in the Cathedral of Valencia, Spain, preserves the Cup of Saint Lawrence, who protected it from the Muslim invasion in the eighth century, in the war of independence and the Civil War.
The Spanish tradition affirms that Saint Peter took the Holy Chalice with him to Rome, to be used in the liturgy, until the persecution of Valerian, in the year 258, when Pope Saint Sixtus II to prevent the precious relic from falling into the hands of the Romans, he entrusted the cup to his treasurer and deacon, San Lorenzo, who commissioned a Spanish soldier to take it to Huesca, Spain, where his family would take care of it.
For this reason, the Chapel of the Holy Grail in the Cathedral of Valencia, Spain, preserves the Cup of Saint Lawrence, who protected it from the Muslim invasion in the eighth century, in the war of independence and the Civil War.
How many Holy Grails are there?
It is true that in the 16th Century there were some twenty cups supposedly used by Jesus at the Last Supper, but today none of them is considered authentic, with the exception of the Holy Chalice from Valencia and the silver cup from Antioch, which is in the possession of the Holy Catholic Apostolic Orthodox Church.
According to experts, the silver cup from Antioch has a capacity of two liters and is too large to be passed from hand to hand around the table of the Last Supper during the Eucharistic communion, although what is interesting is the fact that Saint Jerome mentioned that there were two cups on the table of the Last Supper, a silver cup that contained the wine for dinner and a stone one, which was used for the institution of the Eucharist, that is to say that the two cups probably passed by the hands of Jesus.
According to experts, the silver cup from Antioch has a capacity of two liters and is too large to be passed from hand to hand around the table of the Last Supper during the Eucharistic communion, although what is interesting is the fact that Saint Jerome mentioned that there were two cups on the table of the Last Supper, a silver cup that contained the wine for dinner and a stone one, which was used for the institution of the Eucharist, that is to say that the two cups probably passed by the hands of Jesus.
