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There are two cloths in question. What we call the Shroud of Turin, and a smaller cloth which apparently covered just the face. When the Shroud was in the Blachernae, it was stored in a reliquary box, folded in three over a wooden framework; the fold marks can still be seen on the Shroud today. A mechanical rope-and-pulley mechanism allowed the folded Shroud to be raised out of the box on this wooden frame, so that only the head and shoulders of the image were visible. This, I believe, is the origin of the Man of Sorrows icon, which shows the head and shoulders of the crucified Christ rising out of a box-like depiction of the tomb (very different from the cave imagery used in other icons of Christ's burial and resurrection). [ Linked Image] Man of SorrowsThis was known as the Mandylion. But there was also a second miraculous image, just of the face, which may have been the Image of Edessa, that also came to be known as the Mandylion. Both were brought from Edessa to Constantinople in the 10th century; both disappeared after the Fourth Crusade. The Shroud ended up in the Chapel of Saint Chapelle in Chamberly, before being transferred to Turin; the image of the face became the property of Louis IX of France, and was kept in Saint Chapelle de Paris, until it disappeared in the French Revolution. A number of other relics have been put forward as the true Mandylion, none of which have been authenticated. But the Shroud of Turin, in my opinion, was the relic that most of Christendom knew as the Mandylion until the sack of 1204. On the Abgar legend, the King of Edessa at the time of Christ was Abgar III; there is no evidence that he ever converted to Christianity. Abgar VIII did convert to Christianity in the third century--making Edessa one of the earliest, if not the earliest kingdoms to be converted--and it is likely that he was the one who ordered the Shroud and the Mandylion, reputed to have been carried to that city by Mar Addai (Thaddeus) in the first century installed in a place of honor. Given the exposed position of Edessa, the relics were hidden during various foreign invasions, and finally moved to safety in Constantinople. It is significant that from the 9th century onward, the Byzantine Church began using liturgical Epitaphioi bearing remarkable similarity to the Shroud, while icons of both the Face Painted Without Hands and the Man of Sorrows became popular. This does not suffice as "scientific" proof, but it is suggestive.
Last edited by StuartK; 10/19/09 05:22 PM.
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One candidate for the Mandylion or face cloth is the so-called Sudarium of Olviedo. According to a paper [ shroud.com] written by Mark Guscin in 1997: One of the relics held by the cathedral in the town of Oviedo, in the north of Spain, is a piece of cloth measuring approximately 84 x 53 cm. There is no image on this cloth. Only stains are visible to the naked eye, although more is visible under the microscope. The remarkable thing about this cloth is that both tradition and scientific studies claim that the cloth was used to cover and clean the face of Jesus after the crucifixion. . .
Such a cloth is known to have existed from the gospel of John, chapter 20, verses 6 and 7. These verses read as follows, "Simon Peter, following him, also came up, went into the tomb, saw the linen cloth lying on the ground, and also the cloth that had been over his head; this was not with the linen cloth but rolled up in a place by itself." John clearly differentiates between this smaller face cloth, the sudarium, and the larger linen that had wrapped the body.
The history of the sudarium is well documented, and much more straightforward than that of the Shroud. Most of the information comes from the twelfth century bishop of Oviedo, Pelagius (or Pelayo), whose historical works are the Book of the Testaments of Oviedo, and the Chronicon Regum Legionensium.
According to this history, the sudarium was in Palestine until shortly before the year 614, when Jerusalem was attacked and conquered by Chosroes II, who was king of Persia from 590 to 628. It was taken away to avoid destruction in the invasion, first to Alexandria by the presbyter Philip, then across the north of Africa when Chosroes conquered Alexandria in 616. The sudarium entered Spain at Cartagena, along with people who were fleeing from the Persians. The bishop of Ecija, Fulgentius, welcomed the refugees and the relics, and surrendered the chest, or ark, to Leandro, bishop of Seville. He took it to Seville, where it spent some years.
Saint Isidore was later bishop of Seville, and teacher of Saint Ildefonso, who was in turn appointed bishop of Toledo. When he left Seville to take up his post there, he took the chest with him. It stayed in Toledo until the year 718. It was then taken further north to avoid destruction at the hands of the Muslims, who conquered the majority of the Iberian peninsula at the beginning of the eighth century. It was first kept in a cave that is now called Monsacro, ten kilometres from Oviedo. King Alfonso II had a special chapel built for the chest, called the "Cámara Santa", later incorporated into the cathedral.
The key date in the history of the sudarium is the 14th March 1075, when the chest was officially opened in the presence of King Alfonso VI, his sister Doña Urraca, and Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, better known as El Cid. A list was made of the relics that were in the chest, and which included the sudarium. In the year 1113, the chest was covered with silver plating, on which there is an inscription inviting all Christians to venerate this relic which contains the holy blood. The sudarium has been kept in the cathedral at Oviedo ever since.
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