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The Holy Shroud is the winding sheet in which our Lord was enveloped
when He was laid in the sepulchre.
The synoptic
Evangelists, Matthew, Mark and Luke expressly state that Joseph of Arimathea
bought a pure linen sheet for Jesus' burial. St John informs us that both he and
Peter saw it lying in the empty sepulchre after the resurrection.
The whereabouts of
the Shroud during the early days of the Church as yet remains a mystery. The
first evidence of it appears in a brief account in one of the letters of the
Bishop of Saragosa during the middle of the seventh century. More references to
the Shroud are made by Bede the Venerable and St. John Damascene in the following century. However, we must wait until the year 1203 before we hear of it again. Robert Di Clary, the author of a chronicle of the IV Crusade, writes:
"The Shroud in which our Lord was enveloped was preserved in a monastery called
St. Mary Blachernes in Constantinople, whither everyone directed his steps to
view the impression of our Lord; no one knows what became of the Shroud after
the city was captured."
Nevertheless, there is reason
to believe that the Shroud was brought to France after the sack of
Constantinople as a spoil of war. In fact, it appears in Lirey toward the year
1352. Since then, it has never been lost sight of again.
In 1452, it came as a gift into
the possession of the House of Savoy by whom it was kept at Chambery until 1578.
During that period, in 1532, a fire broke out in the chapel where the Shroud was
kept in a silver reliquary. The heat of the fire caused one side of the reliquary to melt, and the molten silver fell upon one of the corners of the folded Shroud charring it somewhat. Fortunately, it was not irreparably damaged.
The repair work was entrusted to the Poor Clare nuns in Chambery, who carefully
removed the burnt portion and sewed new pieces of linen in their place. The
result of this vicissitude has been that series of symmetrically spaced diamond
shaped patches along the entire length of the cloth, which is so striking at
first sight.
St.Charles Borromeo, hearing of
the Holy Shroud in Chamberry, vowed he would cross the Alps on foot to
venerate it. In order to spare the Saint the discomfort of so laborious a pilgrimage,
Emmanuel Filliberto brought the Shroud to Turin, a city of
his duchy, in 1578 where it has
remained up to this day. The architect Guarini
erected an artistic chapel for the Sacred Relic in which it is preserved in a
precious silver case above the altar.
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