The Veneration of the Honorable Chains of the Holy and All-Praised Apostle Peter: In approximately 42 AD, the Apostle Peter was imprisoned by Herod Agrippa for preaching about Christ the Savior. He was held in prison by two iron chains, but during the night before his trial, an angel of the Lord miraculously freed him from his chains and led him out of the prison (Acts 12:1-11).
Upon learning of this miracle, Christians kept the chains as precious relics. For three centuries, the chains were kept in Jerusalem, where the faithful who approached them with faith received healing from their illnesses. Patriarch Juvenal presented the chains to Eudokia, the wife of Emperor Theodosius the Younger, who then transferred them from Jerusalem to Constantinople in either 437 or 439.
Eudokia also sent one chain to Rome for her daughter Eudoxia, who built a church dedicated to the Apostle Peter on the Esquiline hill and placed the chain in it. Other chains, with which the Apostle Peter was shackled before his martyrdom under Emperor Nero, were also kept in the church.
On January 16, the chains of Saint Peter are displayed for public veneration.
Herod Agrippa, seeking favor with the people, imprisoned the Apostle Peter after he had already executed James, the brother of John the Evangelist. However, Peter was miraculously set free by an angel (Acts 12:1-19), and the chains that bound him were believed to possess healing powers for the faithful.
Just as relics associated with the Apostles Paul and Peter were believed to have healing properties, the chains of Saint Peter were revered for their sanctification and healing grace. The Orthodox Catholic Church holds in high esteem not only the relics of the saints’ bodies but also their clothing, as seen in the miraculous healings attributed to the Apostles’ garments and shadows.
St. Peter is commemorated on this day for the miraculous event of his chains falling off in prison, as described in the Acts of the Apostles. The chains were later gifted to Empress Eudocia by Patriarch Juvenal, and she divided them between Constantinople and Rome, where they were housed in churches dedicated to the Apostle Peter.
Source: vema.com.au