The Basilica houses the 1,000-year-old “holy right hand” of St. István — Hungary’s first Christian king. Called “the monkey paw” by irreverent Hungarians, the gnarly relic wasn’t on display the day we were there (this is my photo of a photo.) The story is that during the process of making King István into a saint, his body was exhumed and his entire right arm was found to be “like new.” So the monks lopped it off and made it into a relic. The severed stump changed owners many times and was eventually split into pieces (upper arm, lower arm, hand) and divided up between Austria, Poland, and Hungary. Other bits and pieces of St. István are also floating around in many churches throughout Eastern Europe.