HELSINKI (AFP) -- A bone splinter belonging to a saint who died a brutal death nearly a thousand years ago has sparked a holy, or rather unholy, war of words between Finland's tiny Catholic community and the Protestant majority.

The bone of contention is a nail-sized fragment of Saint Henry, Finland's patron saint.

Both Christian churches claim the fragment for their cathedrals and the dispute has become so bitter that it has been compared to the schism following the Reformation 500 years ago.

Henry, a 12th century bishop who brought Christianity to this Nordic country, met an early death at the hands of an axe-wielding Finnish farmer and was buried at his local church.

The pope then proclaimed him Finland's patron saint, and in 1300, the Turku cathedral, Finland's first, was named after him and his remains were displayed there.

This was supposed to be his final resting place, but no such luck for Henry.

When Finland adopted Martin Luther's reformation in 1527, the worshiping of saints was outlawed, relics, sculptures and paintings depicting saints were taken down, church property confiscated, and poor old Henry was buried again.

But in the early 18th century, he was back on the move, this time because his bones were stolen by a marauding Russian Army - and disappeared.

Until 1924, when a bone fragment said to belong to him was found in a tomb in Turku, and immediately moved to Finland's National Museum.

But as Finnish prejudice against saint-worshiping is still very much in place, the fragment has never been on show at the museum.

"At the national museum we do not display these things. We do not consider it proper, because they are still religious objects to some," Helena Edgren, an official at the national museum, told AFP.

Finland's Catholic community, just 5,000 strong, occasionally borrows the splinter, especially for the annual celebration of Henry's mass on January 19.

"It's Saint Henry's church, he is the patron saint of the diocese and the parish of Saint Henry, and we worship and honor Saint Henry," Teemu Sippo, the vicar negotiating in the dispute on behalf of the Catholic Church, told AFP.

A law, passed in 1923, allows Catholics to worship saints, but not Lutherans.

"Saints are holy people, as such they are very dear to us, and we do honor these relics, but it's quite another thing for the Lutherans," Sippo said.

But the Lutherans, who make up 85 percent of Finland's 5.2 million inhabitants, have made no bones about their strong desire to get their hands on the fragment.

After the museum lent the relic to the Catholics for five years in 1998, it caused an uproar in the Lutheran church, with Jukka Paarma, then the dean of Turku, demanding it for his cathedral.

There is some confusion as to his motives, because Lutherans are not particularly interested in saints or other middlemen between themselves and God, preferring to pray directly to Him.

"It's not part of our church, we do not worship saints," Aila Lauha, a church historian at Helsinki University, told AFP.

Some say that Paarma's motives are unholy, and really linked to his desire to boost tourism revenues at his cathedral's museum, a charge he has denied.

"They (the Lutherans) only woke up when the Catholics got it ... it's a kind of jealousy," Henrik Lilius, the former head of the national museum who originally lent the relic to the Catholics, told AFP.

"Their behavior is not very nice, it runs against the idea of increased understanding between the religions," he said.

Both Paarma, now an archbishop, and the new dean of Turku, Rauno Heikola, declined to answer any questions from AFP and only confirmed through their secretaries that talks are ongoing.

Edgren said she was puzzled by the Lutherans' obsession with the relic. "The relic has nothing to do in the Lutheran church, as it has no religious meaning," she pointed out. "If they put it on display, it's only a historical object, while in Saint Henry's cathedral it's still a piece of living religion, it has still its religious meaning."

Lutherans feel that a suitable time for a handover would be in 2005, the 850th anniversary of the advent of Christianity in Finland and Turku's 775th birthday.

Both Lutherans and Catholics now await the decision of Finnish Parliament's ombudsman, or mediator, who settles all public sector disputes and who expects to decide on Henry's fate by next year.

With a little luck, poor Henry's bones, or what's left of them, will be put to rest once and for all.