Stephen E. Jones

Shroud of Turin quotes: Unclassified quotes: February 2009

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The following are quotes added to my Shroud of Turin unclassified quotes in February 2009. See copyright conditions at end.

2009: Jan, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec.

11/02/2009
"[Plate] 31. Icon copy of the Edessa cloth, 17 X 16 inches, early-thirteenth century, preserved in the 
Cathedral of Laon, France. Note the disembodied appearance of the face and the light-tone `cloth' 
background. (Spadem)" (Wilson, I., "The Evidence of the Shroud," Guild Publishing: London, 1986, 
pp.110E)

11/02/2009
"One prime example of such a request for a `holy face' was that around the year 1249 made by the Abbess 
Sibylle of the northern French Cistercian convent of Montreuil-des-Dames to her brother Jacques Pantaleon 
de Troyes, then working in Rome. Pantaleon sent her an impressive panel painting that has survived to this 
day as the `holy face' of Laon ... He even specifically described this as a `Veronica' in his accompanying 
letter, his chief concern its somewhat darkened appearance: `Do not be surprised if you find his [Christ's] 
face blackened and sunburnt, for those who dwell in temperate and cold climates and who live all the time in 
pleasant places, have fair, delicate skin, whereas those who are always in the fields have burnt, darkened 
skin. This is the case with the Holy Face, bronzed by the heat of the sun, as the Song of Songs has it. Our 
Lord has worked in the field of this world for our redemption. [Grabar, A., "La Sainte Face de Laon," 
Seminarium Kondakovianum, Prague 1935, p.8, in Currer-Briggs, N., "The Shroud and the Grail," Weidenfeld: 
London, 1987, p.58] But as is quite evident from this painting's Slavonic-lettered inscription `The Lord's 
Picture on the Cloth', and, studies of it made by professional art historians, it is a Byzantine icon, the 
darkened appearance in Pantaleon's time almost certainly having been due to the eastern incense and 
candles that had been burnt before it." (Wilson, I., "Holy Faces, Secret Places: The Quest for Jesus' True 
Likeness," Doubleday: London, 1991, p.47)

11/02/2009
"The 'holy face' of Laon. In the mid-thirteenth-century, French-born papal chaplain Jacques Pantaleon de 
Troyes (later Pope Urban IV) sent this painting to his abbess sister Sibylle, specifically as a copy of the 
Veronica of Rome. In reality, it is a twelfth-century Byzantine icon depicting a different `holy face' known to 
have been preserved in Constantinople between AD 944 and 1204. The icon, measuring 44 x 40 cm, is today 
preserved in the Cathedral of Laon ..." (Wilson, I., "Holy Faces, Secret Places: The Quest for Jesus' True 
Likeness," Doubleday: London, 1991, p.79) 

11/02/2009
"The Blessed Juliana had seen a vision thirty or so years before while Pope Urban, then Jacques Pantaleon, 
had been Archdeacon of Liege ... Jacques Pantaleon was the son of a cobbler of Troyes, and apart from his 
association with Corpus Christi, he is remembered for the gift of an icon, now known as the Sainte Face de 
Laon, which he sent to his sister, the abbess of a Cistercian nunnery at Montreuil-en-Thierache exactly two 
hundred years before, in 1249. This icon, I was later to discover, plays a crucial role in the identification of 
the Holy Grail, and will be described at some length in the appropriate place." (Currer-Briggs, N., "The 
Shroud and the Grail: A Modern Quest for the True Grail," St. Martin's Press: New York NY, 1987, pp.45-46)

11/02/2009
"But there is another scenario we ought to consider. If Mary-Margaret never had the Mandylion, but only 
the Sindon, a decision concerning its disposal had to be taken at her death. ... Before I consider this further I 
want to return to the circumstantial evidence I mentioned earlier, which convinces me that the Shroud was 
taken to Srem. It hinges upon the origin of the Sainte Face de Laon. Jacques Pantaleon, later Pope Urban IV, 
but earlier a canon of Laon, sent the icon to his sister, an abbess in Picardy, in 1249 from Apulia. It bears a 
Slavonic inscription stating that `This is the Lord's face on the Cloth', and all experts agree that it is of 
Balkan origin and dates from the first half of the thirteenth century. A similar icon, lacking the trelliswork 
background and inscription but almost certainly painted by the same artist, is in the Tretyakov Museum in 
Moscow. Independent experts have dated this icon to between 1200 and 1217. A third icon, also in the 
Tretyakov, of the Rostov-Suzdal school, and dating from the late thirteenth century, shows Christ's head 
strikingly similar to the others, but with a squared background and fringe with the two roundels containing 
Christ's monograms similar to those on the Laon icon. The origin of all three is clearly the same: the first two 
may even have been painted at the same time." (Currer-Briggs, N., "The Shroud and the Grail: A Modern 
Quest for the True Grail," St. Martin's Press: New York NY, 1987, pp.157-158) 

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