1914 Documented reliquary theca with relics of the True Cross of Jesus Christ

An oval glass-fronted silver pendant reliquary theca housing precious relics of the Wood from the True Cross of Jesus Christ. The relic is displayed in a cruciform shape on a ground of red silk surrounded by intricate gilt paperolle ornamentation with four small pearls and identified in Latin on a typeset cedula label as V. Crucis (of the True Cross [of Our Lord Jesus Christ]).  On the back, under a protective cap, the reliquary is secured with a seal of red Spanish wax bearing an imprint with a coat of an unidentified Roman Catholic Bishop. The relic is accompanied by the original typed Letter of Testimony in German language dated 1914 and stating the following:

Certificate.

I hereby certify that the fragment of the True Cross contained in the enclosed round capsule is authentic. It comes from the estate of Blessed Archbishop Nikolaus Adames, who took it from a larger fragment kept in the parish church of Obermerzig (diocese of Luxembourg).

Luxembourg, May 4, 1914.

The Rector of the Redemptorists

Archbishop Nikolaus Adames (†1887) served as Pro-apostolic vicar of Luxembourg (1848-1863), Apostolic vicar of Luxembourg, (1863-1870), and Bishop of Luxembourg (1870-1883).

The True Cross is the name for physical remnants that, according to Church tradition, are believed to be from the cross upon which Jesus was crucified. Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine, the first Christian Emperor of Rome, traveled to the Holy Land in 326–28, where she discovered the hiding place of three crosses that were believed to be used at the crucifixion of Jesus and of two thieves, St. Dismas and Gestas, executed with him, and a miracle revealed which of the three was the True Cross. Fragments of the Cross were broken up, and the pieces were widely distributed; in 348, in one of his Catecheses, Cyril of Jerusalem remarked that the "whole earth is full of the relics of the Cross of Christ." Most of the small relics of the True Cross in Europe came from Constantinople after the city was captured and sacked in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade. They were carved up by the present bishops and divided with other very precious relics among the knights, who, after their return to the homeland, donated them to churches and monasteries.