Furta sacra

Furta sacra (Latin, "holy thefts") refers to the medieval Christian practice of stealing saints' relics and moving them to a new shrine.

[1] Trade in and thefts of relics led to the creation of a new genre of hagiography that aimed to legitimize the actions that brought relics to their new homes; in these writings, the translation of the relics is often portrayed as morally necessary, or even requested directly by God.

[2] Sometimes, hagiographers would try to downplay the theft, but in general it was believed that a relic could not be stolen without the permission of the saint; a successful theft thus indicated saintly approval of the action.

[3] Saints Marcellinus and Peter are a famous example.

A monk from Conques brought her relics to the Abbey Church of Sainte-Foy after spending ten years undercover as a secular priest in Agen, where her relics had previously been housed.

A mosaic with two scenes. Four white men in robes labeled as THEODOR' PBR, STAVRACIVS MON, TRIBVN' and RVSTIC' hold the body of a haloed closed-eyes bearded man in white robes labeled as S MARCS. In the second scene, TRIBVN' and RVSTIC' hold a stick on their shoulders. A full basket hangs from the stick.
Taking the body of Saint Mark the Evangelist from Alexandria and hiding it into a basket. 11th-century mosaic in St. Mark's Cathedral , Venice.
Painting of three white men carrying a coffin with a white haloed bearded man in it. Three head tops are visible beyond the coffin. They are preceded by two white tonsured men in robes holding sticks (candles? lances?). They are received by a haloed white bearded man and two acolytes. Cyrillic text is over the coffin.
The translation of the relics of Saint Nicholas from Myra to Bari . By Radul (1673–74), Patriarchate of Peć , Serbia.