Sudarium of Oviedo

The Sudarium of Oviedo, or Shroud of Oviedo, is a bloodstained piece of cloth measuring c. 84 cm × 53 cm (33 by 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.

The Sudarium of Oviedo.

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 Exaltation of the Cross on 14 September, and its octave on 21 September.

Background and history

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 sudarium is linked to a face cloth in the empty tomb mentioned by John 20:6–7. Outside of the Bible, the anonymous pilgrim of Piacenza recorded in 570 AD that he visited a cave on the Jordan rumored to have the face cloth mentioned in John.^[2]

Pelagius of Oviedo, a bishop of medieval Spain, gives an account of the Sudarium's history from the Holy Land to Spain preserved in the Liber testamentorum and interpolated into the Chronica ad Sebastianum in the Liber chronicorum.

This account claims the Sudarium was taken from Israel in 614 AD, after the invasion of the Byzantine provinces by the Sassanid Persian King Khosrau II. To avoid destruction in the invasion, it was taken away first to Alexandria by the presbyter Philip, who then carried it through northern Africa when Khosrau II conquered Alexandria in 616 AD, 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 657 it was moved to Toledo, then in 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 840 AD.

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 that reads, "The Sacred Sudarium of Our Lord Jesus Christ".

See also

• Religion portal
• Christianity portal
• Spain portal

• Bilihildis, recipient of a sudarium
• Blood of Christ
• Empty tomb
• Relics associated with Jesus