How the Holy Grail came to València

From Jerusalem to Rome

The cup used by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper was brought from Jerusalem to Rome by Saint Peter and used from then on by him and the successive popes of the Church in Rome during the Eucharistic celebrations until the year 258, when Pope Sixtus II entrusted his deacon Saint Lawrence to remove the chalice from Rome to protect it from the persecution of Emperor Valerian.

Its passage through Aragon

Saint Lawrence delivered the relic to Huesca, where his parents lived. The chalice ended up hidden in the monastery of San Juan de la Peña, and in 1399 it was handed over by the monks of the monastery to King Martin I of Aragon, of whom three letters requesting the relic insistently have been preserved. Once in his hands, Martin I took the Grail to the chapel of his residence in Zaragoza, the Palace of the Aljafería.

The transfer to Valencia

Another king, Alfonso the Magnanimous, transferred in 1424 the Holy Grail to the Royal Palace of Valencia, his residence at the time. However, the conquest of the Kingdom of Naples required costly military campaigns for which he needed loans, one of them contracted with the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The king guaranteed it with all his relics, including the Holy Grail, which he had to hand over in 1437 as part of a financial agreement with the Church. 

Veneration in the Cathedral of Valencia

It was preserved and venerated for centuries among the relics of the Cathedral, and until the 18th century it was used to hold the consecrated host in the “monument” of Holy Thursday, until it was finally installed in the old Chapter Hall, set up as the Chapel of the Holy Grail in 1916.