Image copyright Historic Images / Alamy Stock Photo Image caption The Martyrdom of St Clement by Bernardino Fungai, about 1500 
 
 A drama that spans a continent and 2,000 years, includes the execution of a Pope by drowning and a central London car break-in, has culminated in a ceremony at Westminster Cathedral. 
 
 A case, containing a fragment of bone, purported to belong to St Clement who was ordained by St Peter and was Pope in the early years of the Christian Church, has been presented to the cathedral in a formal ceremony. 
 
 Some time after it was stolen from its owner's car, it turned up in a rubbish haul from house and office clearances. 
 
 It fell to James Rubin, owner of Enviro Waste, to hand the relic over to Archbishop George Stack, representing the Catholic Church in England and Wales. 
 
 Image copyright Catholic Church England and Wales Image caption James Rubin presented the relic to Archbishop George Stack 
 
 Where has this come from? 
 
 In February last year Mr Rubin spotted the unusual-looking object on a desk in the company's warehouse in Leyton, east London, where staff had been sorting waste to see what could be recycled or refurbished. 
 
 He asked: "Where has this come from?" but no one knew. 
 
 He says it's very hard to pinpoint exactly where it was found as the company's trucks clear up to 30 premises a day. 
 
 Image copyright Enviro Waste Image caption Mr Rubin spotted the relic on a desk in his company's warehouse 
 
 He took it back to his office and hit Google. 
 
 "It's got Latin on the front. It says 'EX OSS ST CLEMENTIS' and that's what gave me the idea that it was from the bone of a saint." 
 
 He thought of giving it to a museum or university hoping they would be able to work out "if it was what we thought it was". 
 
 "I really didn't know what to do with it." 
 
 So Mr Rubin appealed to the public for suggestions on the firm's blog. 
 
 There were hundreds of messages, including from institutions as far away as Hungary and the United States, keen to take the relic. 
 
 But Westminster Cathedral also responded and he decided it should go there. 
 
 "It just felt like the right thing to do." 
 
 Image copyright Enviro Waste Image caption James Rubin deciphered the Latin inscription on the case 
 
 The relic's owner - who has decided to remain anonymous - came forward, saying it had been stolen during a car break-in, but agreed it should go to the cathedral on permanent loan as part of its Treasures Exhibition. 
 
 "It's a really happy outcome to this particular extraordinary story," says historian and Catholic cultural expert Sophie Andreae, who brokered the deal for the cathedral. 
 
 "These objects are of very great significance. Catholics feel that they have not just a link with a very holy person from the past, but also a link with the divine." 
 
 What of its deeper past? 
 
 St Clement was Pope for just over a decade until the Emperor Trajan ordered him to be banished and then executed in about AD100. 
 
 Legend has it that he was thrown off a boat off the coast of what is now Crimea, tied to an anchor. 
 
 Image copyright The Picture Art Collection / Alamy Stock Photo Image caption An 11th Century fresco inside Basilica San Clemente shows the bones arriving in Rome 
 
 He is recognised as a saint by both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches and because of his watery martyrdom is also the patron saint of mariners. 
 
 The story goes that a miraculous ebbing of the sea revealed a shrine containing his bones. 
 
 Almost 800 years later some of the bones are said to have been brought to Rome and enshrined in the Basilica di San Clemente. 
 
 A monastery in Ukraine is said to have his head and other relics. 
 
 So is this fragment really from one of his bones? 
 
 "How can we be sure?" says Dr Tessa Murdoch, Deputy Keeper of Sculpture, Metalwork, Ceramics and Glass at London's Victoria & Albert Museum 
 
 "It purports to be and it has been treasured as that." 
 
 She says the inscription on the red wax seal on the case which includes a cardinal's hat and tassels could give clues about when the relic was endorsed by the Catholic Church. 
 
 Image copyright Enviro Waste Image caption The seal on the back of the case could give clues as to the date it was authorised by the Church 
 
 Dr Murdoch says altars in early Christian churches would have relics placed inside them to enhance their sacred properties. 
 
 "A part of a relic was representative of the whole. So even though this is a tiny piece, purporting to be the bone of St Clement, it represents the whole saint and martyr. 
 
 "Because these things are cherished and kept in sacred places and sacred spaces, sometimes under altars, the general public is not perhaps aware of their potency and so it's very rare that something like this comes into the public domain in such extraordinary circumstances, and it kind of reminds us all of the extraordinary power and association of such a small object." 
 
 She says the best way to comprehend their significance is to think of gifts between loved ones, for example locks of hair. 
 
 "We can relate to things like that but if you actually translate those sort of special gifts between loved ones into the life of faith and sacred gifts, I think it helps understand the depth of power that these objects have." 
 
 How did it come to the UK? 
 
 "We can't possibly know," says Ms Andreae. 
 
 She points out that in the 16th Century under Henry VIII, the reformation saw huge destruction of relics in England, with the tombs of saints "completely smashed up". 
 
 Some Catholics were able to hide sacred objects in their homes but, more probably, Ms Andreae believes, this relic was brought to England in the early 19th Century once persecution eased and wealthier Catholics could travel abroad, some bringing artefacts from Italy back with them. 
 
 Mr Rubin says the find trumps all the other strange objects his firm has retrieved over the years, from personal financial details, stuffed pets and even someone's OBE medal. 
 
 "It's amazing. Crazy," he says. ||||| A small leather case containing a fragment of bone claimed to be a relic of St Clement, a pope who was martyred almost 2,000 years ago, has been found in rubbish collected from central London. 
 
 The waste disposal firm is now appealing for suggestions from the public for a more suitable final resting place for a saint than a bin. 
 
 
 
 The box, originally sealed with red wax and tied with crimson cords, contained a scrap of bone under a glass dome, with a faded strip of paper labelling it “Oss. S Clementis” – bone of St Clement. 
 
 St Clement is a somewhat obscure figure, and details of his life are hazy and contradictory. However, he is said to have been martyred around the year 100 – just short of his own centenary – by the Roman emperor Trajan, by being tied to an anchor and thrown into the sea off the Crimea: his fate made him a patron saint of mariners. 
 
 He was an early Roman convert to Christianity, said to have been made a bishop by St Paul himself and in time became bishop of Rome, which made him the third pope after the martyrdom of the saints Peter and Linus. He is said to have written important letters of spiritual guidance to the Corinthians who gave St Paul so much trouble. 
 
 The little box ended up in the hands of the Enviro Waste firm, which collects both commercial and domestic waste. The case was found after a run that included several different sites in central London, and so the firm cannot pinpoint where the relic came from. It was spotted when employees were sorting through the load to separate out anything that could be recycled. 
 
 The firm has now created a form on its blog, which is usually concerned with vital topics including the handling of hazardous waste and the proposal for a deposit return scheme for plastic bottles, inviting the public to suggest where the relic should go next. 
 
 James Rubin, the firm’s owner and chief executive, described the relic as “an important piece of history” which deserves an appropriate home. 
 
 “You can imagine our amazement when we realised our clearance teams had found bone belonging to a pope – it’s not something you expect to see, even in our line of work. We often come across some weird and wonderful things on clearances,” he said. 
 
 The cult of relics, and the flourishing medieval trade in fakes, was one of the abuses which led to the Reformation, but genuine relics, often believed by the faithful to be miracle working, were cherished and passed on for centuries. 
 
 The church of San Clemente in Rome is said to have been built over the foundations of the saint’s house, and an abbey at Abruzzo, in central Italy, still claims to hold most of Clement’s remains in a marble chest.
– St. Clement was said to have been put to death by being tied to a boat anchor and drowned. Just shy of 2,000 years later, what's believed to be a piece of one of his bones has been presented to Westminster Cathedral. The path from there to here is filled with legend, crime, and a Google search. Clement, one of the Catholic Church's first popes, was killed on the orders of the Roman emperor Trajan around AD99, and his watery death led to him becoming a patron saint of mariners, reports the Guardian. The BBC reports something miraculous was said to have followed: The sea receded, revealing his bones, a fragment of which reportedly came to be kept in a wax-sealed case that shows the words "EX OSS S. CLEMENTIS PM." It was recently stolen from the car of the unnamed person who owned it and ended up in London's trash. It might have stayed there were it not for Enviro Waste owner James Rubin, whose staff set aside the case while pulling items that could be recycled or refurbished from the waste it collected. A Google search of those Latin words led Rubin to believe it was a saint's bone, and he blogged about the find, asking for advice on what to do. Some 650 suggestions later, he settled on giving it to Westminster Cathedral, and the owner, who also emerged, agreed to hand it over on permanent loan. A ceremony was held to transfer the relic on Tuesday. (A thief stole what was left of a saint's brain.)