But it is a very rare thing, that a heart disposed to value any relics whatever should not become to a certain degree polluted by some superstition.

-John Calvin

Criticizing Relics

In the later Middle Ages, the growing trade in relics and wider intellectual currents revived old concerns about idolatry. Whereas some thinkers preserved an honored place for relic veneration, the nascent Protestant movement would reject it as a corrupting influence on the Christian tradition.

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