Amazing as it may seem, the small medieval town of Flavigny sur Ozerain is in possession of two most precious relics: large parts of the skulls of the Holy Apostles Simon and Jude, whom we honour on this day. Tradition tells us that it was Pope John VIII who, on one of his tours of France around 820, stopped at the abbey of Flavigny which had been founded about a century before, and along with consecrating their abbatial church, gave into the keeping of the monks the sacred heads which had seen Our Lord, spoken with Him, and preached His glory unto bloody martyrdom. With the relics of St Regina, virgin and martyr, also kept in Flavigny-sur-Ozerain, the tiny town is truly a holy place, one of those places one should visit with great devotion, and which one leaves only with a certain sadness.
