DNA tests for Swedish saint
A shrine to Saint Birgitta, considered as Sweden's patron saint, is to be opened on Tuesday so that DNA tests can be carried out to determine whose remains it contains. Birgitta, a widow and mother of eight, is highly popular in northern Europe, Germany, Hungary and Poland. The shrine, at the Vadstena church in central Sweden, is dedicated to Birgitta Birgersdotter (1303-1373), who was canonised in 1391. It contains the remains of three people - Birgitta, her daughter Katarina and Saint Ingrid - but only two skulls.
Birgitta's remains were placed in Vadstena a year after she died in Rome, while those of Katarina, Vadstena's first abbess, were added in 1389. The remains of Saint Ingrid, who founded a nearby convent, were placed there in the early 1500s, but a skull was removed from the shrine during the 17th Century and taken to a Dutch convent.
"We will know if Birgitta is here or in the Netherlands," said Marie Allen, a researcher at the Uppsala laboratory north of Stockholm.
[Erik says: Just when you thought that collecting Saint relics was a lost art!]
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