Shroud of turin
Legends about the miraculous images of Jesus Christ have existed for many centuries. It is widely known, for example, the life of Saint Veronica, a pious Jerusalem woman who submitted her headcover on the way to Calvary Jesus. Christ wiped them sweat and blood from the face, and on the coverlet His face was miraculously imprinted. No less known story about the king of Edessa Abgar V the Great, to whom Jesus sent cards with his non-human image and thereby healed leprosy. According to the Gospel of John, at the conclusion of his farewell supper, Jesus Christ wiped his face with a towel with which he had before wiped the feet of the apostles, after which the image of Jesus' face also remained on it. It is the “copies” from this face which are now officially called “The Merciful image of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The originals of these relics, if they existed, were lost in immemorial times.
Nowadays, there is only one relic with the image of Christ, which claims authenticity and for over 100 years has attracted the attention of believers and scholars from all over the world. Back in the city 1506 in the Bull of Pontifex of Rome, Pope Julius the Second declared it "the most reliable, purest shroud (proeclarissima sindone) that our Savior was dressed in when he was placed in a coffin." And Pope Paul VI in 1978 called it "the most important relic of Christianity." This is, of course, about the famous Shroud of Turin, an exact copy of which is the famous American scientist John Jackson in 1978. handed over to the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1997 was His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy in the Moscow Sretensky Monastery consecrated the image on the copy of the Shroud as the Sacred Image of the Savior. The problem, however, lies in the fact that all these not man-made images, not excluding the shroud of interest to us, seemed to be unknown to the Christians of the first centuries of the new era. Thus, the Bishop of Lyons, Iriney (130-202), a person who was personally acquainted with the closest disciple of the Apostle John the Baptist, the Bishop of Smyrna Polycarp, wrote: "The bodily appearance of Jesus Christ's face is unknown to us." The great theologian Augustine also complained that there was no way to know what Jesus looked like. Supporters of the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin tried to circumvent this contradiction with the help of the Gospels unrecognized by the official Church - the apocrypha. As you know, after the death of Jesus, his secret disciples Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, with the permission of Pilate, removed the body from the cross and "wrapped it in sheets with incense, as the Jews usually bury." A day and a half later, Christ was resurrected and the empty “veil” was first discovered by Mary Magdalene, and then by the apostles Peter and John. However, the faithful Jews could not touch the ritual clothes of the deceased, and therefore the funerary clothes of the resurrected Jesus Christ were taken by Pilate's wife and “put in a place known only to her.” Apparently, it was in this “place known to Pilate’s wife” that many shrouds were later “found”. The first one was discovered in 525 (according to other sources - in 544) in Edessa (the modern Turkish city of Urfa). By the 15th century, the 40 Shrines of Jesus Christ were historically recorded in the Christian world. Currently, Catholic abbeys, cathedrals and temples in Western Europe are carefully preserved and periodically exposed to worship by believers at least 26 "the original burial clothes (shrouds) of Jesus Christ." In addition to Turin, the most famous shrouds are still in Besancon (Besancon), Cadwin (Cadoin), Champiet (Champiegne), Xabregas (Xabregas), Oviedo (Oviedo) and other cities. In the twentieth century, during discussions about the Shroud of Turin, researchers managed to get to many of these shrouds, proving the falsity of all these relics. The most shocking character was the conclusion about the counterfeitness of the Bezanskon Shroud. On it, besides the image of the body of the dead Jesus Christ, there was an inscription in an unfamiliar language. Legend claimed that it was made by the hand of Jesus Christ (variants: Apostle Thomas, who delivered an image to King Avgar on the orders of Jesus Christ; Apostle John, who kept the Shroud and signed it with his hand; Apostle and Evangelist Luke, who painted the image on the shroud of the shroud Jesus Christ). However, it turned out that the inscription was made in the XIV century in Arabic and reflects the views of Islam on Jesus Christ. But now the Shroud of Turin turned out to be an exceptional exception to this rule and it was not at all easy to prove or reject its authenticity.
At present, it looks like a linen cloth 4,3 by 1,1 meters long, against a yellowish-white background of which yellowish-brown spots are visible, somewhat vague, but folding into a human figure. When spread out, on the left half of the canvas, an image of a man in a supine position appears, face up, with his head to the center of the fabric, on the right half of the canvas, an imprint from the back. Darker reddish-brown spots are also noticeable on the shroud, possibly corresponding to the wounds of Christ inflicted with a whip, needles of a crown of thorns, nails and a spear. If you believe the testimony of eyewitnesses of the 1353th century, earlier the image was much brighter, but now it barely appears. The first documentary mention of the shroud of interest to us dates back to 1357, when the relic appeared in the possession of Count Geoffroy de Charny near Paris. De Charny himself claimed that he "owns the shroud that once dwelt in Constantinople." In 1389 the shroud was exhibited in the local church, which caused a large influx of pilgrims. Oddly enough, the church authorities were very skeptical about the appearance of the relic. For its demonstration, Bishop Henri de Poitiers reprimanded the rector of the church, and his successor Pierre d'Arcy in 6 even appealed to Pope Clement VII of Avignon (modern Catholic historiography considers Avignon popes to be antipopes, but does not throw them out of their history) with a request to ban public displays of the Shroud. At the same time, he referred to the testimony of a certain artist, who remained anonymous, who allegedly confessed to making this canvas, repented and received from him, from Bishop Pierre, forgiveness for his sacrilege. As a result, on January 1390, 1532, Clement VII issued a decree according to which the shroud was recognized as an artistic reproduction of the original veil in which Joseph of Arimathea wrapped the body of Christ after the execution. In 1578, the shroud was damaged during a fire in the church of the city of Chambery, which, however, did not touch its central part. In 1983, the granddaughter of the Comte de Charny gave the shroud to the Duke of Savoy, who brought it to Turin, where to this day it is kept in a special ark in the Cathedral of Giovanni Batista. The last crowned representative of the Savoy dynasty - the ousted king of Italy Umberto II - bequeathed the shroud to the Vatican, whose property it became in XNUMX.
So, for many centuries the Shroud of Turin was not considered unique and did not attract much attention of the public. That all changed in 1898, when the shroud as a work of art was exhibited in Paris. Before closing the exhibition, archaeologist and amateur photographer Secondo Pia first photographed the face of the Shroud of Turin. When the plate appeared, it turned out that the image on the canvas was a negative. At the same time, the image in the photo turned out to be much clearer than on the canvas, which allowed the experts to draw conclusions about the anatomical perfection of the image and even about the presence of characteristic features of the rigor mortis of the body. New photos taken in 1931, confirmed the view that the image on the shroud is the imprint of a real corpse, and not a picture or imprint of a statue. At the same time, it turned out that a person once wrapped in this veil had a pigtail on the back of his head, which was a complete surprise for historians: after all, there is no pigtail on any of the famous images of Christ. The crown of thorns, judging by the drops of blood on the head, resembled a miter, which contradicts the medieval images of the crown in the form of a crown of the European type, but is consistent with modern data. Hands pierced with nails in the wrists, not palms, which is also contrary to the medieval traditions of the Crucifixion image, but fully consistent with modern archaeological finds of crucified people and experimental data that found that nails hammered into the palm of a corpse are not able to hold the body on the cross. Thus, data were obtained that indirectly testify to the authenticity of the Shroud, but at the same time questioning the bloody stigmata on the body of some saints and their followers: after all, they had open wounds on their palms. But the Shine of Turin acquired a truly worldwide reputation in 1952 after a thirty-minute program of WNBQ-TV (Chicago). Until then, the disputes about its authenticity attracted the attention of only narrow circles of believers and skeptics-scientists opposing them, but now this problem has become the focus of attention of the largest mass media of the whole world.
One of the main arguments of skeptics was the absence of any information about the existence of the shroud for thirteen centuries from the moment of the crucifixion of Christ until the appearance of a relic in medieval France. True, some sources report that the crusaders, who set up camp near Constantinople in 1203, saw in one of the churches of this city the burial shroud of Christ depicting his figure. But when a year later the crusaders captured and plundered the great city, this shroud was not found. It has been suggested that he was abducted by the Templars, who secretly kept him for over a hundred years. Interestingly, the ancestor of Geoffroy de Charny, in the possession of whom the shroud appeared in 1353, bore the title of Prior of the Knights Templar of Normandy and in 1314 was burned at the stake with the Grand Master Jacques de Male. However, historians have no data to identify this mysterious shroud with the shroud of interest to us, and if they do, the problem will still remain unsolved: the date of the first mention of the shroud will be shifted by only 150 years, which is clearly not enough. The supporters of authenticity of the Shroud also proved their arguments. Indirect evidence of the early origin of the shroud may be, for example, the close coincidence of proportions and details of the face on the shroud with the icon of the icon of the monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai (45 matches) and the image of Christ on the gold coin of Justinian II (65 matches). True, as skeptics point out, remains unknown: the icon and coins copied from the shroud, or was it the other way around?
In the study of the fabric of the Shroud, 49 pollen of plant species was found, of which 16 are found in Northern Europe, 13 belong to desert plants growing in southern Israel and in the Dead Sea, 20 - found in southwestern Turkey and Syria. This study proved Middle Eastern origin, if not of the shroud itself, then at least the fabric on which it was made, but did not answer the main question - about the time of its manufacture.
In the fall of 1978, the shroud was put on public display. This event was dedicated to the 400 anniversary of its appearance in Turin. Historians took advantage of this case for a more detailed study of the shroud. When microphotographing in polarized light and computer scanning, it was found that coins were put on the eyes of the corpse, one of which turned out to be an extremely rare Pilate mite, on which the inscription “Emperor Tiberius” was made with an error. Skeptics, however, doubt that among the Jews of the beginning of our era there was a widespread Greek rite to place over the eyes of the dead coins that were intended to be paid to Charon. In addition, they very reasonably note that the Jews themselves wrapped only the body of the deceased with their own shroud, while they wrapped their heads with a separate piece of cloth. These objections do not refute the above conclusions about the authenticity of the image of the crucified body, but leave open the question of the identity of the executed person and the time of the occurrence of this relic. Therefore, throughout the twentieth century and nowadays, researchers are really worried and worried about only two problems: the exact date of manufacture of the shroud and the technique of its manufacture. In particular, it was hypothesized that the crucified was a member of one of the early Christian communities, crucified during times of persecution of Christians. According to another version, the shroud was artificially created in the IV century, which is characterized by the flourishing of the cult of Christian relics and their mass appearance in the “market”. All theoretically possible methods of obtaining an image of a living or dead body on linen fabric were tried, but the prints differed significantly in structure and quality from the image on the shroud. The only exception can be considered an experiment on a living person, conducted in the Vatican. The test subject's hands were moistened with lactic acid in a thousand-fold dilution (at about this concentration, it is released with sweat under stress and high loads) and powdered with red clay heated to 40 degrees. Two hours later, fairly distinct tissue prints were obtained.
At the same time, researchers found traces of hemoglobin, bilirubin and other components of the blood, which could belong only to humans or to higher primates. Blood type was IV. But there were also traces of paint. Previously it was assumed that she hit the canvas during copying: in different years the shroud was copied at least 60 times. However, studies have shown that in some places the fabric of the Shroud is colored not with blood, but with artificial purple, which was learned to be made in the Middle Ages. Thus, it was proved that the unknown master still “painted on” the image of tempera on a gelatinous basis, and this was done not earlier than the XIII century, when this technique of painting lines appeared. The obtained data could indicate both the late origin of the relic and its “restoration” in the Middle Ages. University Professor South Carolina Daniel C. Skavron and French researchers L. Pikknet and K Prince even suggested that in 1492, a great connoisseur of light and colors, Leonardo da Vinci, had a hand in it. In that year, Leonardo saw the shroud in Milan, perhaps he painted on the face of Jesus Christ in the so-called complementary, reversible colors, which led to the appearance of a positive image of Segundo Pia on the photo negative.
The most significant milestone in the study of the shroud was 1988, when the Roman Catholic Church gave permission for its radiocarbon research. This work was entrusted to three independent laboratories - the Geneva Center for Scientific Information and Documentation, the University of Oxford and the University of Arizona. Representatives of each of these centers received unmarked vials with samples of four fabrics: in one of them was a piece of the shroud, in the other - the fabric of the Roman Empire, in the third - the fabric of the early Middle Ages, in the fourth - the fabric of the early 14th century. The findings of all three laboratories were disappointing: with an accuracy of 95%, a radioactive analysis established that the shroud fabric was made between 1260 and 1390. Archbishop Anastasio Alberto Ballestero of Turin was forced to agree with this conclusion. Following him, Pope John Paul II, during a visit to Africa in his speech on 28 on April 1989, stated that the Catholic Church only recognizes the Shroud of Shrine as a sacred relic - an image painted on canvas, which is used in pre-prayer worship in all Catholic and Orthodox temples, but not as genuine funerary blankets of Jesus Christ. Thus, the Vatican officially recognized the result of a scientific study of the age of the Shroud of Turin. The words of the Pope did not affect the popularity of this relic. Her demonstrations in 1998 and 2000 aroused constant excitement. Next time it is supposed to be put on display in 2025. Maybe scientists are waiting for new discoveries and surprises?
Nowadays, there is only one relic with the image of Christ, which claims authenticity and for over 100 years has attracted the attention of believers and scholars from all over the world. Back in the city 1506 in the Bull of Pontifex of Rome, Pope Julius the Second declared it "the most reliable, purest shroud (proeclarissima sindone) that our Savior was dressed in when he was placed in a coffin." And Pope Paul VI in 1978 called it "the most important relic of Christianity." This is, of course, about the famous Shroud of Turin, an exact copy of which is the famous American scientist John Jackson in 1978. handed over to the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1997 was His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy in the Moscow Sretensky Monastery consecrated the image on the copy of the Shroud as the Sacred Image of the Savior. The problem, however, lies in the fact that all these not man-made images, not excluding the shroud of interest to us, seemed to be unknown to the Christians of the first centuries of the new era. Thus, the Bishop of Lyons, Iriney (130-202), a person who was personally acquainted with the closest disciple of the Apostle John the Baptist, the Bishop of Smyrna Polycarp, wrote: "The bodily appearance of Jesus Christ's face is unknown to us." The great theologian Augustine also complained that there was no way to know what Jesus looked like. Supporters of the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin tried to circumvent this contradiction with the help of the Gospels unrecognized by the official Church - the apocrypha. As you know, after the death of Jesus, his secret disciples Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, with the permission of Pilate, removed the body from the cross and "wrapped it in sheets with incense, as the Jews usually bury." A day and a half later, Christ was resurrected and the empty “veil” was first discovered by Mary Magdalene, and then by the apostles Peter and John. However, the faithful Jews could not touch the ritual clothes of the deceased, and therefore the funerary clothes of the resurrected Jesus Christ were taken by Pilate's wife and “put in a place known only to her.” Apparently, it was in this “place known to Pilate’s wife” that many shrouds were later “found”. The first one was discovered in 525 (according to other sources - in 544) in Edessa (the modern Turkish city of Urfa). By the 15th century, the 40 Shrines of Jesus Christ were historically recorded in the Christian world. Currently, Catholic abbeys, cathedrals and temples in Western Europe are carefully preserved and periodically exposed to worship by believers at least 26 "the original burial clothes (shrouds) of Jesus Christ." In addition to Turin, the most famous shrouds are still in Besancon (Besancon), Cadwin (Cadoin), Champiet (Champiegne), Xabregas (Xabregas), Oviedo (Oviedo) and other cities. In the twentieth century, during discussions about the Shroud of Turin, researchers managed to get to many of these shrouds, proving the falsity of all these relics. The most shocking character was the conclusion about the counterfeitness of the Bezanskon Shroud. On it, besides the image of the body of the dead Jesus Christ, there was an inscription in an unfamiliar language. Legend claimed that it was made by the hand of Jesus Christ (variants: Apostle Thomas, who delivered an image to King Avgar on the orders of Jesus Christ; Apostle John, who kept the Shroud and signed it with his hand; Apostle and Evangelist Luke, who painted the image on the shroud of the shroud Jesus Christ). However, it turned out that the inscription was made in the XIV century in Arabic and reflects the views of Islam on Jesus Christ. But now the Shroud of Turin turned out to be an exceptional exception to this rule and it was not at all easy to prove or reject its authenticity.
At present, it looks like a linen cloth 4,3 by 1,1 meters long, against a yellowish-white background of which yellowish-brown spots are visible, somewhat vague, but folding into a human figure. When spread out, on the left half of the canvas, an image of a man in a supine position appears, face up, with his head to the center of the fabric, on the right half of the canvas, an imprint from the back. Darker reddish-brown spots are also noticeable on the shroud, possibly corresponding to the wounds of Christ inflicted with a whip, needles of a crown of thorns, nails and a spear. If you believe the testimony of eyewitnesses of the 1353th century, earlier the image was much brighter, but now it barely appears. The first documentary mention of the shroud of interest to us dates back to 1357, when the relic appeared in the possession of Count Geoffroy de Charny near Paris. De Charny himself claimed that he "owns the shroud that once dwelt in Constantinople." In 1389 the shroud was exhibited in the local church, which caused a large influx of pilgrims. Oddly enough, the church authorities were very skeptical about the appearance of the relic. For its demonstration, Bishop Henri de Poitiers reprimanded the rector of the church, and his successor Pierre d'Arcy in 6 even appealed to Pope Clement VII of Avignon (modern Catholic historiography considers Avignon popes to be antipopes, but does not throw them out of their history) with a request to ban public displays of the Shroud. At the same time, he referred to the testimony of a certain artist, who remained anonymous, who allegedly confessed to making this canvas, repented and received from him, from Bishop Pierre, forgiveness for his sacrilege. As a result, on January 1390, 1532, Clement VII issued a decree according to which the shroud was recognized as an artistic reproduction of the original veil in which Joseph of Arimathea wrapped the body of Christ after the execution. In 1578, the shroud was damaged during a fire in the church of the city of Chambery, which, however, did not touch its central part. In 1983, the granddaughter of the Comte de Charny gave the shroud to the Duke of Savoy, who brought it to Turin, where to this day it is kept in a special ark in the Cathedral of Giovanni Batista. The last crowned representative of the Savoy dynasty - the ousted king of Italy Umberto II - bequeathed the shroud to the Vatican, whose property it became in XNUMX.
So, for many centuries the Shroud of Turin was not considered unique and did not attract much attention of the public. That all changed in 1898, when the shroud as a work of art was exhibited in Paris. Before closing the exhibition, archaeologist and amateur photographer Secondo Pia first photographed the face of the Shroud of Turin. When the plate appeared, it turned out that the image on the canvas was a negative. At the same time, the image in the photo turned out to be much clearer than on the canvas, which allowed the experts to draw conclusions about the anatomical perfection of the image and even about the presence of characteristic features of the rigor mortis of the body. New photos taken in 1931, confirmed the view that the image on the shroud is the imprint of a real corpse, and not a picture or imprint of a statue. At the same time, it turned out that a person once wrapped in this veil had a pigtail on the back of his head, which was a complete surprise for historians: after all, there is no pigtail on any of the famous images of Christ. The crown of thorns, judging by the drops of blood on the head, resembled a miter, which contradicts the medieval images of the crown in the form of a crown of the European type, but is consistent with modern data. Hands pierced with nails in the wrists, not palms, which is also contrary to the medieval traditions of the Crucifixion image, but fully consistent with modern archaeological finds of crucified people and experimental data that found that nails hammered into the palm of a corpse are not able to hold the body on the cross. Thus, data were obtained that indirectly testify to the authenticity of the Shroud, but at the same time questioning the bloody stigmata on the body of some saints and their followers: after all, they had open wounds on their palms. But the Shine of Turin acquired a truly worldwide reputation in 1952 after a thirty-minute program of WNBQ-TV (Chicago). Until then, the disputes about its authenticity attracted the attention of only narrow circles of believers and skeptics-scientists opposing them, but now this problem has become the focus of attention of the largest mass media of the whole world.
One of the main arguments of skeptics was the absence of any information about the existence of the shroud for thirteen centuries from the moment of the crucifixion of Christ until the appearance of a relic in medieval France. True, some sources report that the crusaders, who set up camp near Constantinople in 1203, saw in one of the churches of this city the burial shroud of Christ depicting his figure. But when a year later the crusaders captured and plundered the great city, this shroud was not found. It has been suggested that he was abducted by the Templars, who secretly kept him for over a hundred years. Interestingly, the ancestor of Geoffroy de Charny, in the possession of whom the shroud appeared in 1353, bore the title of Prior of the Knights Templar of Normandy and in 1314 was burned at the stake with the Grand Master Jacques de Male. However, historians have no data to identify this mysterious shroud with the shroud of interest to us, and if they do, the problem will still remain unsolved: the date of the first mention of the shroud will be shifted by only 150 years, which is clearly not enough. The supporters of authenticity of the Shroud also proved their arguments. Indirect evidence of the early origin of the shroud may be, for example, the close coincidence of proportions and details of the face on the shroud with the icon of the icon of the monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai (45 matches) and the image of Christ on the gold coin of Justinian II (65 matches). True, as skeptics point out, remains unknown: the icon and coins copied from the shroud, or was it the other way around?
In the study of the fabric of the Shroud, 49 pollen of plant species was found, of which 16 are found in Northern Europe, 13 belong to desert plants growing in southern Israel and in the Dead Sea, 20 - found in southwestern Turkey and Syria. This study proved Middle Eastern origin, if not of the shroud itself, then at least the fabric on which it was made, but did not answer the main question - about the time of its manufacture.
In the fall of 1978, the shroud was put on public display. This event was dedicated to the 400 anniversary of its appearance in Turin. Historians took advantage of this case for a more detailed study of the shroud. When microphotographing in polarized light and computer scanning, it was found that coins were put on the eyes of the corpse, one of which turned out to be an extremely rare Pilate mite, on which the inscription “Emperor Tiberius” was made with an error. Skeptics, however, doubt that among the Jews of the beginning of our era there was a widespread Greek rite to place over the eyes of the dead coins that were intended to be paid to Charon. In addition, they very reasonably note that the Jews themselves wrapped only the body of the deceased with their own shroud, while they wrapped their heads with a separate piece of cloth. These objections do not refute the above conclusions about the authenticity of the image of the crucified body, but leave open the question of the identity of the executed person and the time of the occurrence of this relic. Therefore, throughout the twentieth century and nowadays, researchers are really worried and worried about only two problems: the exact date of manufacture of the shroud and the technique of its manufacture. In particular, it was hypothesized that the crucified was a member of one of the early Christian communities, crucified during times of persecution of Christians. According to another version, the shroud was artificially created in the IV century, which is characterized by the flourishing of the cult of Christian relics and their mass appearance in the “market”. All theoretically possible methods of obtaining an image of a living or dead body on linen fabric were tried, but the prints differed significantly in structure and quality from the image on the shroud. The only exception can be considered an experiment on a living person, conducted in the Vatican. The test subject's hands were moistened with lactic acid in a thousand-fold dilution (at about this concentration, it is released with sweat under stress and high loads) and powdered with red clay heated to 40 degrees. Two hours later, fairly distinct tissue prints were obtained.
At the same time, researchers found traces of hemoglobin, bilirubin and other components of the blood, which could belong only to humans or to higher primates. Blood type was IV. But there were also traces of paint. Previously it was assumed that she hit the canvas during copying: in different years the shroud was copied at least 60 times. However, studies have shown that in some places the fabric of the Shroud is colored not with blood, but with artificial purple, which was learned to be made in the Middle Ages. Thus, it was proved that the unknown master still “painted on” the image of tempera on a gelatinous basis, and this was done not earlier than the XIII century, when this technique of painting lines appeared. The obtained data could indicate both the late origin of the relic and its “restoration” in the Middle Ages. University Professor South Carolina Daniel C. Skavron and French researchers L. Pikknet and K Prince even suggested that in 1492, a great connoisseur of light and colors, Leonardo da Vinci, had a hand in it. In that year, Leonardo saw the shroud in Milan, perhaps he painted on the face of Jesus Christ in the so-called complementary, reversible colors, which led to the appearance of a positive image of Segundo Pia on the photo negative.
The most significant milestone in the study of the shroud was 1988, when the Roman Catholic Church gave permission for its radiocarbon research. This work was entrusted to three independent laboratories - the Geneva Center for Scientific Information and Documentation, the University of Oxford and the University of Arizona. Representatives of each of these centers received unmarked vials with samples of four fabrics: in one of them was a piece of the shroud, in the other - the fabric of the Roman Empire, in the third - the fabric of the early Middle Ages, in the fourth - the fabric of the early 14th century. The findings of all three laboratories were disappointing: with an accuracy of 95%, a radioactive analysis established that the shroud fabric was made between 1260 and 1390. Archbishop Anastasio Alberto Ballestero of Turin was forced to agree with this conclusion. Following him, Pope John Paul II, during a visit to Africa in his speech on 28 on April 1989, stated that the Catholic Church only recognizes the Shroud of Shrine as a sacred relic - an image painted on canvas, which is used in pre-prayer worship in all Catholic and Orthodox temples, but not as genuine funerary blankets of Jesus Christ. Thus, the Vatican officially recognized the result of a scientific study of the age of the Shroud of Turin. The words of the Pope did not affect the popularity of this relic. Her demonstrations in 1998 and 2000 aroused constant excitement. Next time it is supposed to be put on display in 2025. Maybe scientists are waiting for new discoveries and surprises?
Information