Replica of Shroud of Turin arrives in Kyiv for Holy Week (05/11/03)

Replica of Shroud of Turin arrives in Kyiv for Holy Week

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Thousands have been forming queues outside of St. Volodymyr Cathedral in Kyiv since May 3 to get a glimpse of what is perceived to be the likeness of Jesus Christ found on a copy of an ancient cloth.

The relic, a Vatican-sanctioned replica of the Shroud of Turin, arrived in Kyiv from Lviv during Holy Week according to the Gregorian calendar. Since September 2002, it had been on display at St. George Cathedral of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church and the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin.

The copy, one of eight that exist in the world, bears the imprint of a human figure, which Christian believers say is the likeness of Jesus Christ. After it was completed, the replica was placed on the original shroud in order to bring it into physical contact with the original markings. The original shroud, found in the Italian city of Turin and displayed very rarely, is said to be the cloth that the biblical figure Joseph of Aramithea gave for the burial of Jesus after He was crucified.

The copy that is touring Ukraine, which is considered the best replication of the original, is permanently found in Miensk, Belarus. The original Shroud of Turin was last publicly displayed during celebrations of the millennium of the birth of Jesus in 2000.

Measuring four meters in length by 1.5 meters in width, the cloth bears the facial and bodily outlines of a man with bloodstains and wounds to his hands and feet. Experts several years ago determined that the outline could have not been painted or made through currently known replication methods, according to an article in the Kyiv newspaper Den. The original was first discovered in the city of Turin in 1694.

Thousands of believers crowded the Kyiv train station to greet the arrival of the shroud, which was then paraded to St. Volodymyr's Cathedral several blocks away, escorted by Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, the leader of the UGCC, and Patriarch Filaret of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate. At St. Volodymyr's Sobor, which is the main church of the UOC-KP, the two Church leaders led the first-ever ecumenical service concelebrated by a leader of the UGCC and the UOC.

Cardinal Husar called the event, "a truly historical moment," in inter-confessional relations in Ukraine and said he hoped it was the beginning of closer cooperation and understanding between Catholic and Orthodox faithful.

In Lviv, hundreds of thousands of all faiths had viewed the shroud over the last seven months, which the Den story said had led to a closer kinship among the faithful of various Christian confessions in that part of Ukraine.

On May 11 the copy of the shroud was scheduled to be moved to the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church of St. Basil the Great in Kyiv. In July it is scheduled to travel to Donetsk for exhibit there before being returned to Miensk.

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