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Sudarium of Oviedo

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The Sudarium of Oviedo.

The Sudarium of Oviedo, or Shroud of Oviedo, is a bloodstained piece of cloth measuring c. 84 x 53 cm (33 x 21 inches) kept in the Cámara Santa of the Cathedral of San Salvador, Oviedo, Spain.[1] The Sudarium (Latin for sweat cloth) is thought to be the cloth that was wrapped around the head of Jesus Christ after he died as described in John 20:6–7.

The cloth has been dated to around AD 700 by radiocarbon dating. However, at the same conference at which this information was presented, it was noted that in actuality the cloth has a definite history extending back to approximately AD 570. The laboratory noted that later oil contamination could have resulted in the late dating.[2]

The small chapel housing it was built specifically for the cloth by King Alfonso II of Asturias in AD 840; the Arca Santa is an elaborate reliquary chest with a Romanesque metal frontal for the storage of the Sudarium and other relics. The Sudarium is displayed to the public three times a year: Good Friday, the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross on 14 September, and its octave on 21 September.

Background and history

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The ark that contains the Sudarium of Oviedo.

The Sudarium shows signs of advanced deterioration, with dark flecks that are symmetrically arranged but form no image, unlike the markings on the Shroud of Turin. The face cloth is mentioned as having been present in the empty tomb in John 20:6–7. Outside of the Bible the Sudarium is first mentioned in AD 570 by Antoninus of Piacenza, who writes that the Sudarium was being cared for in the vicinity of Jerusalem in a cave near the monastery of Saint Mark.

The Sudarium is presumed to have been taken from Israel in AD 614, after the invasion of the Byzantine provinces by the Sassanid Persian King Khosrau II. In order to avoid destruction in the invasion, it was taken away first to Alexandria by the presbyter Philip, then carried through northern Africa when Khosrau II conquered Alexandria in AD 616 and arrived in Spain shortly thereafter. The Sudarium entered Spain at Cartagena, along with people who were fleeing from the Persians. Fulgentius, bishop of Ecija, welcomed the refugees and the relics, and gave the chest containing the Sudarium to Leandro, bishop of Seville. He took it to Seville, where it spent some years.[1]

In AD 657, it was moved to Toledo, then in AD 718 on to northern Spain to escape the advancing Moors. The Sudarium was hidden in the mountains of Asturias in a cave known as Montesacro until king Alfonso II, having battled back the Moors, built a chapel in Oviedo to house it in AD 840.

On 14 March 1075, King Alfonso VI, his sister and Rodrigo Diaz Vivar (El Cid) opened the chest after days of fasting. The event was recorded on a document preserved in the Capitular Archives at the Cathedral of San Salvador in Oviedo. The king had the oak chest covered in silver with an inscription which reads, "The Sacred Sudarium of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

At the end of the television program "Finding Jesus: Faith, Fact, Forgery" episode one about the Shroud of Turin, there is a significant segment on the Sudarium of Oviedo, Mark Guscin of the Spanish Center of Sinfonology explains that the blood stains on the cloth are "one part blood and six parts pleural edema fluid (a liquid that collects in the lungs)" which is consistent with asphyxiation. The blood patterns on the cloth are "absolutely inconsistent with any kind of breathing movement" The point is made that according to Jewish burial customs the face was the seat of the soul, the person, and therefore had to be treated with utmost respect. Also, the care that Joseph of Arimathea took in arranging a proper and thorough burial of Jesus - treatment that was rare of crucified victims who were more commonly left to rot and be eaten by animals - is evidence of his contrition and repentance for not speaking up for Jesus during the trial and crucifixion itself. The blood in the cloth in the forehead region can only be explained, beyond reasonable doubt, as evidence that the body was lying face down on the ground once removed from the cross, so that blood trickling out of the nose would have run down into the forehead area. It is evidence that the body would also have been carried face down - with at least one person holding each arm (Joseph & Nicodemus for example) with someone holding the cloth to the face to make sure that it did not fall off. Once in the tomb the Sudarium would have been removed and the body wrapped in a shroud. But for Guscin the stains on the cloth are like a fingerprint, belonging to one person - if the cloth had been wrapped around the head of another victim who had undergone the self-same tortures and crucifixion, the stains would have come out differently by degree. This has important outcomes because, when the stains on the Sudarium are compared with those in the Turin Shroud, the bloodstains appear to match beyond reasonable doubt. If so, then the two cloths were used at the same time on the same body. First mention of the Sudarium "tied it to Jerusalem just over 500 years after Jesus' death". This would make the Sudarium at least 700 years older than the carbon dated results yielded for the Turin Shroud. Guscin believes the dating of the shroud to be wrong, because both cloths must have coincided with an event in Jerusalem sometime before the 5th century, which says a great deal about the dating of the Turin Shroud - formerly touted as a late-medieval forgery - pointing to the possibility of it being a much earlier cloth.

See also

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References

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Notes

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  1. ^ a b Witherington, Ben (10 November 2014). "Aha! Praha – the Prague Report Part Five". Patheos.
  2. ^ The Second International Conference on the Sudarium of Oviedo, April 2007, retrieved 16 June 2013.
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