Byzantine Emperor's Troops Take Edessa Cloth
In 944, Emperor Romanus I sent an
army to remove the Edessa Cloth and transfer it to Constantinople.
There are many references to it
after 944. In 1080, Alexis Comnenus of Constantinople sought
assistance from Emperor Henry IV and Robert of Flanders to protect
some of the city’s relics including “the cloth found in the
sepulcher after the resurrection.” A Roman codex in 1130 speaks of
the cloth “on which the image, not only of My face, but of My
whole body has been divinely transformed.”
The most significant record of the
cloth may be in a sermon preached by Gregory Referendarius, the
archdeacon of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, on the
occasion of the transfer of the cloth. The sermon, which was
recently discovered in the Vatican Archives and translated from
the ancient Greek by Mark Guscin, reveals, explicitly, that the
Edessa Cloth contained a full length image, one that was believed
to be of Jesus. It had obvious bloodstains from a side wound.
See:
The Mozarabic Rite and Ancient
History of the Shroud of Turin
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