There’s an ancient cloth in Spain that just may be the cloth you will hear about in the Gospel this Easter.

The first choice for Easter will be the Gospel in which John tells us what the apostles saw Easter morning when they visited Christ’s empty tomb: Peter “went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.”

The “burial cloths” there, many believe, are the Shroud of Turin. But what about “the cloth that covered his head”?

A Revered Relic

The Sudarium of Oviedo is a small, bloodstained linen cloth that has been venerated in the Cathedral of San Salvador for more than a thousand years.

Pious Christians from Alexandria escorted it to Spain in the seventh century in an ancient chest — believed carved by Jesus’ disciples — that contained relics. They were fleeing from the devastation of the Persian invasion of Jerusalem in 612 that resulted in the razing of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the loss of the True Cross.

The cloth is dirty and wrinkled, without any monetary value whatsoever. The sole reason for safeguarding it throughout the centuries has been the belief that it covered the head of Jesus after the crucifixion. The bloodstains, therefore, are a living witness to Christ’s passion, and the blood is that of the Son of God himself, who died for our salvation.

Although this relic is little known today, it attracted so many thousands of pilgrims to Oviedo throughout the centuries that an alternate route developed to the tomb of St. James in Santiago de Compostela, the pilgrimage destination that rivaled Rome and Jerusalem.

King Alfonso II the Chaste, the same king who built the first church in Santiago, constructed a holy chamber in his palace early in the ninth century, and the fame of the relics spread like wildfire throughout the Christian world. Throngs of the faithful would crowd the church during the traditional benediction with the Sudarium, holding up bread and other objects that were later used to heal the sick.

This benediction continues today in the Gothic cathedral that was built around the holy chamber. The archbishop unveils the Sudarium in solemn benediction on only three days each year: Sept. 14 and Sept. 21, the first and last days of the Octave of the Holy Cross; and Good Friday. It is not possible to see the relic at other times, although it may be venerated hidden in the archaic holy chamber, surrounded by the many
other relics that made Oviedo famous.

Documents suggest that St. Peter used the cloth after Christ’s resurrection to heal the sick. Religious women later cared for it in a small cave near the Monastery of St. Mark, until the Persian invasion when the Christians quickly absconded with it to Alexandria.

The Persians followed, and the only recourse was to embark for Spain where the chest was placed in the custody of St. Isidore of Seville, the influential bishop who was later declared a Doctor of the Church. His death marked the occasion of the cloth’s transferal to Toledo, Spain’s new Christian capital, in the custody of St. Ildephonsus, one of the greatest saints of the Spanish Church.

The Muslim invasion of Spain in 711 compelled the Christians to flee to the northern mountains with the chest of relics, which they hid in a well on top of a mountain called Monsacro for 50 years, until the danger had subsided. Alfonso II soon made Oviedo its permanent home.

Because of the profound respect for relics, the chest remained
unopened for about 300 years. 

In 1075, King Alfonso VI made a winter journey from Toledo to Oviedo, accompanied by the Spanish hero of the reconquest of Spain, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, better known as El Cid. The king had always longed to discover the chest’s contents, and undaunted by an attempted opening 45 years earlier, in which several people were allegedly blinded, he took precautions.

The king ordered fasting and prayer, and filled the church with incense. On the fourth Friday of Lent, the chest was opened, and the king fastidiously made an inventory of its contents. Christ’s facecloth inspired him to order the chest silver plated with the words, “Of the Sepulcher of the Lord and of his Sudarium and of His Most Precious Blood,” carried out in 1113.

Although this cloth is specifically mentioned in John 20:7, no one has ever known exactly what it was or how it was used. Thanks to the investigation begun in 1989 by the Spanish Center for Sindonology based in Valencia, we now have a plethora of new information about Christ’s passion.

These scientists were granted permission to conduct a multi-disciplinary study on the linen in 1989, in response to the negative carbon dating of the Shroud of Turin. In studies published in 1994 and 1997, they affirmed the overwhelming probability that the Shroud of Turin and the Sudarium of Oviedo covered the same crucifixion victim, and that the only possibility that can be supported historically, biblically and scientifically is that this victim was Jesus of Nazareth.

They determined that the head was wrapped while the body was still hanging from the cross, beginning from the back. It was fastened to the hair with sharp objects – very likely thorns – and passed around the left side of the head. As the cloth wrapped the face, where the greatest concentration of blood is found, an object prevented them from surrounding the head completely, so they doubled it back in such a way that a mirror image of the bloodstains occurred.

This “object” was the right arm, which was raised high on the cross, with the head pressed against it, the very image that has been memorialized on crucifixes all over the world. Use of the cloth was mandated by the Jewish belief that the blood is equal to the flesh in importance because it is the “seat of life.” When blood flowed at the time of death, washing the body was not only forbidden, but it was also extremely important to bury any bloodstained cloths and linens, and not allow the blood to spill on the ground.

The washed-out bloodstains on the Sudarium are a mixture of the blood
and water that John witnessed flowing from Christ’s side. This serum is the product of pulmonary edema, characteristic of crucifixion victims. After death occurs, the fluid is forced through the nose and mouth. The cloth remained in place for up to one hour as the body hung on the cross, and for another hour after the body was taken down and laid horizontally on the ground.

At this time, the cloth was rewrapped around the head and anointed with aloe, thought to be a preservative. The abundant quantity of this substance testifies to the biblical witness that Nicodemus brought 100 pounds of aloes and myrrh to anoint Jesus. The cloth was then knotted at the top of the head, documented in a fifth-century paraphrase of John 20, written by Nonnus of Panopolis.

The body was then moved a short distance, and the cloth was removed and
set aside in the tomb. The knot would have given it a twisted, or rolled-up appearance, in accordance with Scripture.

The most significant discovery, however, concerns exactly what the position of the linens meant that led John and Peter to believe in Jesus’ resurrection. The burial linens were lying collapsed, exactly where the body had been placed in the tomb. The Sudarium was lying rolled up in a separate place, where Jesus’ disciples had put it after laying his body in the tomb.

There was no alternative but to believe in the miracle that St. Paul declares central to our Christian faith: the Easter message of hope for eternal life.

Janice Bennett is author of St. Laurence and the Holy Grail: The Story of the Holy Chalice of Valencia (Ignatius, 2004) and Sacred Blood,
Sacred Image: The Sudarium of Oviedo, New Evidence for the Authenticity of the Shroud of Turin (Ignatius, 2005).