hagiotherapy means the medieval practice of using religious relics, prayers, pilgrimages, etc. in an attempt to alleviate sickness. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
Why “hagiotherapy” is a great word
The medieval practice of attempting to alleviate sickness through prescribed contact with religious relics, prayers, and pilgrimages. From the Greek hagios ("holy") + therapeia ("healing, service"). Unlike 'faith healing,' a broad modern term often untethered from specific objects, or 'psychotherapy,' a secular system of mental treatment, hagiotherapy was a formalized economy of grace bound to sacred materiality. It is the fevered palm pressed against a glass reliquary, the weary, measured tread along a pilgrimage road, the murmured prayer over a vial of dust from a saint's tomb—a ritual calculus of desperation where the cure was sought not in the body's humors, but in the palpable texture of belief.
Etymology
From hagio- + therapy.
noun
- The medieval practice of using religious relics, prayers, pilgrimages, etc. in an attempt to alleviate sickness.