History of the Holy Shroud
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's 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 site of again.
In 1452, it came as a gift into the possession of the House of Savoy by whom it 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 Claire 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 Chambery, 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 Filiberto 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.