THOUSANDS of pilgrims are expected to visit a casket containing the relics of a young French saint when it comes to the region later this year.

A shrine to Therese of Lisieux will be touring various sites across the North-East.

Therese Martin was born in Normandy in 1873 and entered a convent of the Carmelite order of contemplative nuns in Lisieux as a teenager.

She never left the convent, living in total obscurity, yet became one of the headline saints of the modern world, dying at the age of 24.

Organisers believe it could be the biggest demonstration of religious faith in the region since the visit of Pope John Paul II to York in 1982.

Gerry Loughran, a member of the organising committee, said: “People are expected to flock to the casket for prayers and veneration.

“Pilgrim organisers stress that believers and non-believers alike are welcome at all the pilgrim stops.

An official announcement extended a hand to “members of other Christian churches, people of other faiths and of no particular faith, anyone who is looking for answers to the questions of life”.

The relics of the young French nun, bone fragments in a sealed casket, will tour 23 places of worship in England between mid-September and mid-October, beginning in Portsmouth and finishing in London.

After travelling to St Andrew’s Roman Catholic church in Newcastle, the relics will be at Carmel Convent in Darlington, the Anglican York Minster and Middlesbrough RC Cathedral.

Mr Loughran said: “Organisers are aware that transporting and venerating relics does not sit comfortably with many in the modern age, particularly northern Europe, including some Christians.

“But the veneration of relics is an ancient tradition shared by many religions and rooted in a natural instinct to treat with reverence anything connected with a loved one who has died including photographs, locks of hair, items of clothing, musical instruments.”

Mother Teresa of Calcutta took her name from Therese; her photo was found on the bedside table of the fabled French chanteuse, Edith Piaf; and Princess Diana was known to light a candle before her statue.

Therese wanted to work as a missionary and in an effort to fulfil this failed desire, her relics have been on a pilgrim’s journey for the past 15 years, visiting such places as Iraq, Lebanon, Russia, Australia and the US.

In Ireland, three-quarters of the population turned out.

Therese – Little Flower of Jesus

● Therese de Lisieux lived from January 2, 1873, to September 30, 1897.

● Born Marie-Francoise-Therese Martin, she is also known as the Little Flower of Jesus.

● St Therese is known today because of her spiritual memoir, L’histoire d’une ame (Story of a Soul), which she wrote upon the orders of two prioresses of her monastery.

● Pope Pius X signed the decree for the opening of her process of canonisation on June 10, 1914.

● Pope Benedict XV, in order to hasten the process, dispensed with the usual 50-year delay required between death and beatification.

● According to some biographies of singer Edith Piaf, in 1922 she was cured of blindness as a seven-year-old after a pilgrimage to the grave of Therese, who at the time was not yet formally canonised.

● Therese was beatified in April 1923 and canonised on May 17, 1925, by Pope Pius XI, only 28 years after her death.