Russian officials are calling the discovery of a medieval prince’s relics a miracle and plan to send a fragment to the front. But why do people venerate relics — and does Lenin’s body count?

Russia can talk of nothing but relics these days: in August, restoration work at the Archangel Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin “found” a sarcophagus containing the well-preserved remains of Prince Dmitry Donskoy. The burial site of the commander of the Russian army at the Battle of Kulikovo had not been a secret, but after his canonization in 1988 the Russian Orthodox Church made no attempt to recover his relics. In the fifth year of the full-scale war, however, church authorities decided…