A popular theory today links the Shroud with the Holy
Mandylion of Edessa. But, how exactly did the
Mandylion end up in Constantinople?
Somewhere between 942-944, an eighty-thousand strong army led by the Armenian-born general
John Kourkouas laid siege to Edessa, which was then already under Muslim control, devastating its countryside in the meantime. Kourkouas offered a deal to the
emir of the city: the
Mandylion must be handed over to Kourkouas, who will, in exchange, release two hundred high-ranking Muslim prisoners being held hostage.
There is a theory that this was no off-the-cuff whim on Kourkouas’ part: as
Domestic of the Schools, his orders had come directly from then septuagenarian emperor,
Romanos Lekapenos, who shared Kourkouas’ Armenian birth and army background. Though he was an uncouth and illiterate person by origin, he advanced through the ranks of the army during the reign of Leo VI the Wise, thereby becoming increasingly influential at court. Romanos used his influence to strengthen his links with the underage hereditary emperor
Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos, by having his daughter Helena marry him. This move eventually made Romanos officially the co-emperor, but in reality the effective head of the Empire. Constantine was not quietly ‘taken care of’ as was common Byzantine practice, but was left free to pursue his interests, gaining Romanos the title of ‘the gentle usurper’.
Romanos’ later reign was marked by the emperor’s heightened interest in religion and his increasing sense of guilt for his role in the usurpation of the throne from his son-in-law Constantine, triggered by the death of his eldest and most competent son
Christopher in 931. It is likely that Romanos, by the act of capturing the
Mandylion, was attempting to redeem himself for posterity, as the last time that truly great relics associated with Jesus were brought to Constantinople was during the time of Constantine the Great. For him to whisk off the image from Muslim territory and have it join what was then the definitive collection of Christ’s relics in all Christendom would be a fitting end to his reign.
Faced with such a demand, the hesitant emir sent an emissary to Baghdad, bearing news of Kourkouas’ extraordinary demand to the
Abbasid caliph,
Al-Muttaqi. A debate soon rose up in the caliph’s court: one faction arguing that since the
Mandylion had been in Islamic territory since time immemorial and that no Byzantine emperor had previously laid claim over it, it would be unacceptable for Muslims to surrender it to the Greeks, the other begging to accept Kourkouas’ demands, since the lives of the hostages were of prime importance over anything else. The latter camp won the dispute, and the
emir was instructed to surrender the image in return for the two hundred hostages, but with the extra proviso that Edessa and its environs be granted perpetual immunity against future Byzantine attacks. Kourkouas (who had slyly captured another thousand prisoners in the interim) agreed to the deal. To make sure that the Edessans would not hand the Greeks a fake, a local bishop, Abraham of Samosata, became the official scrutineer and receiver of the image in behalf of the emperor Romanos. Abraham was said to have insisted on inspecting no fewer than three versions of the image found within the city, all claiming to be the true
Mandylion, before he was satisfied that he had the genuine article.
Interestingly, there was a story about how in the 8th century, the
Mandylion was duplicated by a local Monophysite magnate named Athanasius bar Gumaye, who rose to fame as tutor and right-hand man to 'Abd al-'Aziz, the brother of the caliph
'Abd al-Malik (ibn Marwan) and governor of Egypt. At that time, orthodox Christians were being made to pay a heavy tax (amounting to 5,000 dinars) for the repair of their cathedral. Having no other alternative, the community offered the
Mandylion to Athanasius as collateral for a loan. Athanasius was then said to have commissioned a painter to make an exact duplicate as possible of the
Mandylion: to the unwitting orthodox community he gave this replica, while he is supposed to have kept the original to himself, later installing it in the Monophysite community’s Baptistry, which he lavishly upgraded. So it was apparently the case that for two centuries, the image venerated in the orthodox Cathedral of Edessa was actually a fake, while the the original was kept in the Monophysite Baptistry.
