TheSudarium of Oviedo, orShroud of Oviedo, is a bloodstained piece of cloth measuring c. 84 cm × 53 cm (33 by 21 inches) kept in theCámara Santa of theCathedral of San Salvador,Oviedo, Spain.[1] TheSudarium (Latin forsweat cloth) is thought to be the cloth that was wrapped around the head ofJesus Christ after he died.
The small chapel housing it was built specifically for the cloth by KingAlfonso II of Asturias in AD 840; theArca Santa is an elaboratereliquary chest with aRomanesque 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 theExaltation of the Cross on 14 September, and itsoctave on 21 September.
TheSudarium shows signs of advanced deterioration, with dark flecks that are symmetrically arranged but form no image, unlike the markings on theShroud of Turin. The sudarium is linked to a face cloth in theempty tomb mentioned byJohn 20:6–7. Outside of the Bible, theanonymous 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 theLiber testamentorum and interpolated into theChronica ad Sebastianum in theLiber chronicorum.
This account claims the Sudarium was taken fromIsrael in 614 AD, afterthe invasion of the Byzantine provinces by theSassanid Persian KingKhosrau II. To avoid destruction in the invasion, it was taken away first toAlexandria by thepresbyter Philip, who then carried it through northern Africa when Khosrau IIconquered Alexandria in 616 AD, and arrived inSpain shortly thereafter. The Sudarium entered Spain atCartagena, 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 toSeville, 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".
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