Anastasia's Grail

by Mary Pearson

these while she told the class that the image itself only penetrated to a depth of one fibril, that it appeared darker where more individual fibrils had been yellowed, and that the overall image came through darker where more fibrils were colored, rather than because there was more of whatever colored them on some strands. It was like a computer-generated image, shaded where more dots of the screen were shaded. Furthermore the image was made with no outline and no brush stokes. The coloring did not bleed into the fiber, but remained uniformly to a depth of one fibril.

  Next she turned to the question of the blood images. She had Arthur scan several of these. She would explain that the clotted blood, much of which was postmortem, passed onto the shroud before the rest of the images were formed, so if you looked under a blood stain, there was no yellowed image below. Furthermore, forensic doctors had determined that they were perfectly anatomical, the blood had flowed not as it would have been painted, but exactly as blood would flow, according to the laws of physics. The blood was type AB (common in the Middle East), it had serum around the edges as would any scab as it was forming, it was a bright red because the person who had shed it had gone through extreme trauma. Finally the clots were unsmeared, as though the body which had made them had simply vanished before beginning to decay.

  Her next task was to list some Proofs that the Shroud came from the time of Jesus.

  -She would show the full shroud while she told them that the cloth was made in Antioch near the time of Jesus.

  -She would show the backside when she told them that a certain stitch recently discovered underneath the backing had never been noted other than in some artifacts from Masada, where Jews had been massacred in the 90’s AD.

  -She would show various photos of pollens removed from the Shroud, ninety percent of which came from the Middle East, some from plants which had become extinct.

  -She would show faint photos of the flora that had imprinted on the Shroud from flowers which had been placed on the Shroud when it was interred. These flowers were also from the Middle East, flowers that bloomed in the spring of the year.

  -She would show the image of a Pontius Pilate coin, minted near the year of Jesus’ death, which had been placed over the Shroud man’s right eye. She would show the image of a ‘Julia Lepton’, Pontius Pilate’s mother-in-law, which had many characteristics in common with the much more faint coin that had been placed over His left eye.

  -She would show an image of a corpse that had been prepared for Jewish burial at the time of Jesus and would tell how it compared exactly to the Shroud.

  -She would show images of people who had been crucified—Roman style, noting that this form of execution had been banned in 340 AD.

  -She would show a roman flagrum and tell them the Shroud man had sustained 100-120 lashes, which it had been determined came from an instrument of this type.

  -She would show a burial tomb, which was believed to have belonged to Christ, and say that dirt on the Shroud man’s feet matched the limestone in this sepulcher.

  Then she would ask the question: What did the Shroud man go through?

  -She would show a scourged back and remind them of the 100-120 lashes with the flagrum, probably inflicted by two men, one taller than the other.

  -She would show a cap of thorns which would have covered the whole head of the victim

  -She would show a depiction of a man carrying the heavy cross beam to a crucifixion and would tell of the abrasions on both shoulders, knees and nose, that this person had fallen without being able to catch himself.

  -She would show nail marks through the wrists of a man and depictions of how the feet would have been nailed, one on top of the other.

  -She would show a depiction of Christ’s side wound which had flowed with blood and water, according to the gospels. The shroud showed evidence of just such a wound and the instrument which would have produced it was the Roman lancea. She would show a picture of this.

  -She would show a representation of the Shroud man’s face, with swollen eye and left cheek from blows to the face. Stacy then planned to read a summary of the tortures Jesus had gone through, which exactly matched those of the man of the Shroud.

  Next she would tackle the History of the Shroud.

  She would show a painting which depicted how it had been bought by Joseph of Arimathea and used to wrap Jesus body. She planned to tell the class that it may have been used by St. James as a tablecloth when celebrating the Eucharist nine days after Pentecost and that altar linens are modeled after the Shroud, and always have been.

  She found a painting which depicted St. Thaddeus giving the Shroud to King Abgar of Edessa and had Arthur scan it. She would tell them this story. She would tell them that it had remained in Edessa until 639 (hidden above a city gate for several centuries) until it was sold to the Eastern Orthodox Church in Constantinople, arriving in 944. It was known there as the Mandylion and was first displayed publicly in the royal palace at Blachernae in 1204 immediately before Crusaders invaded, conquered and sacked the city, taking the Shroud, among other treasures, as trove.

  She would tell how the Shroud came to belong to Othon de la Roche after the fourth crusade and that he passed it to his granddaughter as a dowry when she married. This is how it came to be displayed during the 1500’s in the Cathedral built to house it in Besancon, France. A medallion found in the Seine in 1855 (now displayed in the Museum of Cluny) bears an image of the Shroud plus the coats of arms of the families of Jeanne de Vergy and her husband, Geoffrey de Charney. She would show a photo of this medallion.

  Geoffrey de Charney’s daughter, Margaret next possessed the Shroud, but having no suitable heirs as she approached death, she sold it to the House of Savoy. The Savoy family rose to become rulers of all Italy and they possessed the Shroud until 1983, when the deposed heir to the throne, Umberto II, died and had it given to the Vatican. The Shroud remains in the Cathedral attached to Umberto’s castle in Turin, Italy to this day. (She would show a photo of the Cathedral in Turin.)

  How does the Church regard the Shroud? would be her next topic. She would show photos of John Paul ll and Benedict XVl, both of whom had visited the Shroud and who personally approved of it. She would tell the class that most popes have tacitly supported the authenticity of the Shroud, although the faithful are not required to believe in it.

  Miscellaneous closing points:

  -Shadows on the Face of the Shroud man (also the way His hair falls) show the miraculous image was formed while Jesus was suspended in midair. She would demonstrate this with photos. Another thing which suggests this is the undersides of His feet, Which are visible.

  -Some people maintain that the Shroud is the real Grail for which crusades were launched and battles fought. They base this on the facts that it was supposed to have belonged to Joseph of Arimathea, was reported to have contained Jesus’ blood and His sweat, and was taken to what sounded like Britain, but the Shroud was brought by Joseph of A to Briteo Edessenorum (the royal palace of Edessa). Briteo sounds like Britain and may have sparked this confusion.

  -a sect which was also responsible for guarding the Holy Land routes, keeping them safe for travelers, was accused of heresy for ‘worshiping a bearded face’. In fact, members of the sect, called the Knights Templar, did have artists’ copies of the Shroud for their religious services. More than forty of these paintings have been found hidden all over Britain. Stacy had Arthur scan photos of a Templar and one of the artists’ copies of the Shroud face.

  -Divine Mercy and the Shroud: Stacy had Arthur scan the first artist’s painting which the vision of Jesus had commissioned St. Faustina to have painted. Then she held up her 8X10 which alternated that same picture with its exact match—the Shroud. So this, she concluded is what Jesus truly looked like.

  -Next she would show photos of the Eucharistic miracle of Lanciano and the Soudarian, or face cloth, of Christ. She would tell the story of how at the words of consecration, the Eucharist became a slice of heart tissue. She would then tell how
all three of these artifacts contained type AB blood and that it had been determined that the face cloth (which can be accounted for back to the fifth century AD) lay over the exact same body as the Shroud of Turin.

  -Finally she would finish by showing the earliest depictions of Jesus, which had been retrieved through archaeological finds, and how they were varied, but tended to be of a Roman bent—clean-shaven, short-haired, et cetera. The first depictions of Christ which appeared with a forked beard and long hair came after the initial discovery of the Shroud in Edessa. She would show numerous examples of the same face having been depicted for Christ from that time on. She would finish with the mosaic icon which graced the Sanctuary of their own church, a copy of a thirteenth century icon which had clearly been modeled after—what else?—the Shroud. Then she would hand the presentation over to Father Joseph for the wrap up.

  When she finally finished organizing this mountain of information, Stacy heaved a sigh of relief. Arthur whistled through his teeth. “Unbelievable,” he said, as though musing. “I never had any idea how real and substantial the evidence in favor of the authenticity of the Shroud was. How could this be such a well kept secret?”

  “Because it was ambushed at the outset,” Stacy reminded him. “McCrone got all of the