Archaeologists in Turkey were excavating at the 1350-year-old Balatlar Church in the Black Sea province of Sinop when they discovered a fragment of a wooden cross , which they claim is linked to the crucifixion of Jesus.

The cross fragment was found within a stone chest, which is currently undergoing analysis. Head of the excavations, Professor Gülgün Köroğlu, believes that the chest served as a symbolic coffin for the relics of a holy person.

“We have found a holy thing in a chest. It is a piece of a cross, and we think it was [part of the cross on which Jesus was crucified]. This stone chest is very important to us. It has a history and is the most important artifact we have unearthed so far,” said Köroğlu.

Köroğlu’s team has been working at Balatlar Church , which was built in 660 AD, for four years and since that time they have also uncovered more than 1,000 human skeletons, as well as ruins of an ancient Roman bath.

According to legend, St Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine, found the cross upon which Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem and sent fragments of it to church leaders in Jerusalem, Rome and Constantinople (present day Istanbul in Turkey). Later in the 4 th century, St. Cyril of Jerusalem said the whole world "has been filled with pieces of the wood of the cross."

By April Holloway