Shroud of Turin: History

• April 10 (or 16), 1349: The Hundred Year War had been raging between France and England for over eleven years and the Black Death had just finished ravaging most of Europe when Geoffrey de Charny, a French knight, writes to Pope Clement VI reporting his intention to build a church at Lirey, France. It is said he builds St. Mary of Lirey church to honor the Holy Trinity who answered his prayers for a miraculous escape while a prisoner of the English. He is also already in possession of the Shroud, which some believe he acquired in Constantinople.


• 1355: According to the "D'Arcis Memorandum", written more than thirty years later, the first known expositions of the Shroud are held in Lirey at around this time. Large crowds of pilgrims are attracted and special souvenir medallions are struck. A unique surviving specimen can still be found today at the Cluny Museum in Paris. Reportedly, Bishop Henri refused to believe the Shroud could be genuine and ordered the expositions halted. The Shroud was then hidden away.


• September 19, 1356: Geoffrey de Charny is killed by the English at the Battle of Poitiers, during a last stand in which he valiantly defends his king. Within a month his widow, Jeanne de Vergy, appeals to the Regent of France to pass the financial grants, formerly made to Geoffrey, on to his son, Geoffrey II. This is approved a month later. The Shroud remains in the de Charny family's possession.


• August 4, 1389: A letter signed by King Charles VI of France orders the bailiff of Troyes to seize the Shroud at Lirey and deposit it in another of Troyes' churches pending his further decision about its disposition.


• August 15, 1389: The bailiff of Troyes reports that on his going to the Lirey church, the dean protested that he did not have the key to the treasury where the Shroud was kept. After a prolonged argument, the bailiff seals the treasury's doors so that the Shroud cannot be spirited away.


• September 5, 1389: The king's First Sergeant reports to the bailiff of Troyes that he has informed the dean and canons of the Lirey church that "the cloth was now verbally put into the hands of our lord the king. The decision has also been conveyed to a squire of the de Charny household for conveyance to his master".


• November (?) 1389: Bishop Pierre d'Arcis of Troyes appeals to anti-pope Clement VII at Avignon concerning the exhibiting of the Shroud at Lirey. He describes the cloth as bearing the double imprint of a crucified man and that it is being claimed as the true Shroud in which Jesus' body was wrapped, attracting crowds of pilgrims.


• January 6, 1390: Clement VII writes to Bishop d'Arcis, ordering him to keep silent on the Shroud, under threat of excommunication. On the same date Clement writes a letter to Geoffrey II de Charny apparently restating the conditions under which expositions could be allowed. That day he also writes to other relevant individuals, asking them to ensure that his orders are obeyed.


• June 1390: A Papal bull grants new indulgences to those who visit St. Mary of Lirey and its relics.


• May 22, 1398: Death of Geoffrey II de Charny. He is buried at the Abbey of Froidmont, near Beauvais, his tomb decorated with his effigy as a knight in armour.


• 1400: Geoffrey II de Charny's daughter Margaret marries Jean de Baufremont.


• June 1418: The widowed Margaret de Charny marries Humbert of Villersexel, Count de la Roche, Lord of St.Hippolyte sur Doubs.


• July 6, 1418: Due to danger from marauding bands, the Lirey canons hand over the Shroud to Humbert for safe-keeping. He keeps it in his castle of Montfort near Montbard. Later it is kept at St.Hippolyte sur Doubs, in the chapel called des Buessarts. According to seventeenth century chroniclers annual expositions of the Shroud are held at this time in a meadow on the banks of the river Doubs called the Pré du Seigneur.


• 1438: Death of Humbert de la Roche, husband of Margaret de Charny


• May 8, 1443: Dean and canons of Lirey petition Margaret de Charny to return the Shroud to them.


• May 9, 1443: Parliament of Dole gives judgment on case of Margaret de Charny v. the Lirey canons.


• July 18, 1447: The Court of Besançon gives judgment on the case of Margaret de Charny v. the Lirey canons.


• 1448/9: Archives of Mons record Margaret de Charny (as Mme de la Roche) with in her care 'what is called the Holy Shroud of Our Lord' entering Mons and ordering French wine there.


• 1449: Belgian chronicler Cornelius Zantiflet records Margaret de Charny exhibiting the Shroud at Liege.


• September 13, 1452: Margaret de Charny shows the Shroud a Germnolles (near Macon) in a public exposition at the Castle.


• March 22, 1453: Margaret de Charny, at Geneva, receives from Duke Louis I of Savoy the castle of Varambon and revenues of the estate of Miribel near Lyon for 'valuable services'. Those services are thought to have been the bequest of the Shroud.


• 1457: Margaret de Charny is threatened with excommunication if she does not return the Shroud to the Lirey canons. On 30 May the letter of excommunication is sent.


• 1459: Margaret de Charny's half-brother Charles de Noyers negotiates compensation to the Lirey canons for their loss of the Shroud, which they specifically recognize they will not now recover. The excommunication is lifted.


• October 7, 1460: Margaret de Charny dies, leaving her Lirey lands to her cousin and godson Antoine-Guerry des Essars.


• February 6, 1464: By an accord drawn up in Paris, Duke Louis I of Savoy agrees to pay the Lirey canons an annual rent, to be drawn from the revenues of the castle of Gaillard, near Geneva, as compensation for their loss of the Shroud. (This is the first surviving document to record that the Shroud has become Savoy property) The accord specifically notes that the Shroud had been given to the church of Lirey by Geoffrey de Charny, lord of Savoisy and Lirey, and that it had then been transferred to Duke Louis by Margaret de Charny.


• 1465: Duke Louis I dies at Lyon. Just over two decades later a chronicle of Savoy will record his acquisition of the Shroud as his greatest achievement. He is succeeded by his son Duke Amadeus IX an inactive but devout prince who has a Cordelier as preceptor and who shares with his wife Duchess Yolande of France a particular devotion to the Shroud. Amaedeus is said in 1502 to have instituted the cult of the Shroud in the Sainte Chapelle at Chambéry. Yolande founds Chambéry's Poor Clares convent, whose sisters, in a few decades time, will repair the Shroud after the chapel fire. However, Amadeus neglects to honor the terms of Duke Louis's agreement to pay an annual rent to the Lirey canons.


• April 21, 1467: Pope Paul II elevates status of the Chambéry chapel to a co llegiate church.


• 1471: Beginning of second phase of construction of the Sainte Chapelle at Chambéry.


• September 20, 1471: Shroud transferred from Chambéry to Vercelli.


• 1472: Death of Duke Amadeus IX.


• 1472: Philibert I ('The Hunter') of Savoy succeeds his father as Duke at the age of six, although his mother, dowager duchess Yolande assumes the role of regent during his minority.


• May 14, 1473: Two delegates from the canons of Lirey press regent Yolande for eight years arrears in the promised rent, or, in place of this, the return of the Shroud to them.


• July 2, 1473: Shroud transferred from Vercelli to Turin.


• October 5, 1473: Shroud transferred from Turin to Ivrea.


• July 18, 1474: Shroud transferred from Ivrea to Moncalieri.


• August 25, 1474: Shroud transferred from Moncalieri to Ivrea.


• October 5, 1475: Shroud transferred across the Alps from Ivrea back to Chambéry.


• 1477-8: Shroud at Susa-Avigliano-Rivoli.


• March 20, 1478 (Good Friday): Shroud exhibited at Pinerolo.


• 1482: Warrant on behalf of the Lirey canons that the dowager Duchess of Savoy should observe agreement made by her late husband. About this same time Leonardo da Vinci leaves Florence to serve as court painter and military engineer at the court of Ludovico Sforza (Il Moro), Duke of Milan. He will stay in Milan for the next 18 years.


• June 6, 1483: Jean Renguis and Georges Carrelet, respectively chaplain and sacristan of the Sainte Chapelle at Chambéry, draw up an inventory in which the Shroud is described as "enveloped in a red silk drape, and kept in a case covered with crimson velours, decorated with silver-gilt nails, and locked with a golden key."


• 1485: The Shroud is regularly carried around with the Savoys as their Court journeys from castle to castle.


• 1488 Easter Sunday: Shroud exhibited at Savigliano.


• 1494 Good Friday: Dowager Duchess Bianca of Savoy exhibits the Shroud at Vercelli in the presence of Rupis, secretary to the Duke of Mantua. Leonardo begins painting of the Last Supper in Milan, on which he will work for two years.


• 1498: King Louis initiates extensive remodeling of the Sainte Chapelle in Paris. An inventory detailing the Shroud when at Turin in this same year describes its case as "a coffer covered with crimson velours, with silver gilt roses, and the sides silver and the Holy Shroud inside wrapped in a cloth of red silk."


• June 11, 1502: At the behest of Duchess of Savoy Marguerite of Austria, the Shroud is no longer moved around with the Savoys during their travels, but given a permanent home in the Royal Chapel of Chambéry Castle. Duke Philibert, Duchess Marguerite, Francois of Luxembourg, viscount of Martigues, husband of Louise of Savoy (grand-daughter of Duke Louis), together with nearly all the local clergy, attend the ceremony of translation during which Laurent Alamand, bishop of Grenoble, solemnly carries the Shroud in its silver-gilt case from Chambéry's Franciscan church to the Sainte-Chapelle. The Shroud is displayed on the Chapel's high altar, then entrusted to the care of archdeacon Jacques Veyron and the canons of the Chapel, who replace it in its case and deposit it behind the high altar, in a special cavity hollowed out of the wall. In this cavity it is secured by an iron grille with four locks, each opened by separate keys, two of which are held by the Duke. Pope Sixtus IV confers on the Chambéry chapel the title Sainte Chapelle.


• April 14, 1503 Good Friday: Exposition of the Shroud at Bourg-en-Bresse for Archduke Philip the Handsome, grand-master of Flanders, on his return from a journey to Spain. The Shroud, which has been specially brought from Chambéry, with great ceremony, by Duke Philibert of Savoy and Duchess Marguerite, is exposed on an altar in one of the great halls of the Duke's palace. Savoy courtier Antoine de Lalaing records of the events of that day: "The day of the great and holy Friday, the Passion was preached in Monsignor's chapel by his confessor, the duke and duchess attending. Then they went with great devotion to the market halls of the town, where a great number of people heard the Passion preached by a Cordeilier. After that three bishops showed to the public the Holy Shroud of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and after the service it was shown in Monsignor's chapel." Lalaing adds that the Shroud's authenticity has been confirmed by its having been tried by fire, boiled in oil, laundered many times 'but it was not possible to efface or remove the imprint and image.'


• 1509: New casket/reliquary for the Shroud is created in silver by Flemish artist Lievin van Latham, having been commissioned by Marguerite of Austria at a cost of more than 12,000 gold ecus. The Shroud's installation in this new casket takes place on 10 August, before the Sainte- Chapelle's grand altar, in the presence of the presidents of the Council of Savoy and other dignitaries. In return for the gift of the casket, the Sainte Chapelle chapter are required to say a daily Mass for Marguerite and her dead husband Philibert.


• 1511: Private exposition for Anne of Brittany, Queen of France, and for Francesco of Aragon.


• 1513: Death at Chambéry of Marguerite's mother-in-law dowager duchess Claude. She is buried behind the high altar of the Sainte Chapelle, Chambéry, immediately facing the repository containing the Shroud.


• 1516: King Francis I of France journeys from Lyon to Chambéry to venerate the Shroud after his victory at Marignan. Copy of Shroud preserved in the Church of St.Gommaire at Lierre is dated to this year.


• 1518: Shroud exhibited from castle walls at Chambéry in honour of the Cardinal of Aragon.


• 1521: Duke Charles III marries Beatrice, daughter of King Emanuel of Portugal in this year, and they make a pilgrimage from Vercelli to Chambéry to venerate the Shroud. Shroud exhibited at Chambéry for benefit of Dom Edme, abbot of Clairvaux. Carried by three bishops, it is shown on the castle walls, and then for privileged observers hung over the high altar of the Sainte Chapelle, Chambéry.


• 1530: Death of Marguerite of Austria.


• December 4, 1532: Fire breaks out in the Sainte Chapelle, Chambéry, seriously damaging all its furnishings and fittings. Because the Shroud is protected by four locks, Canon Philibert Lambert and two Franciscans summon the help of a blacksmith to prise open the grille. By the time they succeed, Marguerite of Austria's Shroud casket/reliquary as made to her orders by Lievin van Latham has become melted beyond repair by the heat. But the Shroud folded inside is preserved bar being scorched and holed by a drop of molten silver that fell on one corner.


• April 16, 1534: Chambéry's Poor Clare nuns repair the Shroud, sewing it onto a backing cloth (the Holland cloth), and sewing patches over the unsightliest of the damage. These repairs are completed on 2 May. Covered in cloth of gold, the Shroud is returned to the Savoys' castle in Chambéry.


• 1535: Savoy is invaded by French troops. Charles III and his family abandon Chambéry. The Shroud is taken to Piedmont, passing through the Lanzo valley.


• May 4, 1535: The Shroud is exhibited in Turin.


• May 7, 1536: The Shroud is exhibited in Milan. Indicative of the rumours that it had been destroyed in the fire, Rabelais' Gargantua published in France in this year includes a scene in which soldiers sacking a monastery vineyard call upon various saints and relics when attacked with a processional cross by one 'Frere Jean':. 'Some made a vow to St.James, others to the Holy Shroud of Chambéry, but it caught fire three months later so that not a single scrap could be saved...'


• 1537: The Shroud is taken for safety to Vercelli because of French invasions.


• March 29, 1537: The Shroud is exhibited from the tower of Bellanda, Nice.


• 1540: The Shroud at Aosta.


• 1541: The Shroud is once again at Vercelli, where it will stay for the next twenty years.


• Early June 1561: The Shroud is brought back to Chambéry and deposited in the Church of St.Mary the Egyptian, in the Franciscan convent.


• August 15 and 17, 1561: Showings of the Shroud from the walls of the city and in the piazza of the castello.


• 1578: The saintly Cardinal Charles Borromeo (1538-1584) decides to journey on foot from Milan to Chambery to give thanks to the Shroud following release of Milan from the plague. To save Borromeo the rigours of a journey across the Alps Duke Emanuel Philibert orders the cloth to be brought from Chambery.


• September 14, 1578: The Shroud arrives in Turin, heralded by a gun salute from the local artillery.


• Friday, October 10, 1578: Private showing of the Shroud for Charles Borromeo and his companions. Upon removal of its black silk coverlet, the cloth is shown stretched out on a large table.


• Sunday, October 12, 1578: The Shroud is carried in procession from the Cathedral to the Piazza del Castello where, with Borromeo, Vercelli's cardinal, the archbishops of Turin and Savoy, and six other bishops officiating, it is shown on a large platform before a crowd estimated at forty thousand.


• October 14, 1578: After forty hours of devotions, a second procession brings the Shroud to the piazza for a second showing.


• October 15, 1578: Second private showing of the Shroud for the close circle of Charles Borromeo. Cusano describes the Shroud as 'testimony to its own authenticity'.


• June 13, 14 & 15, 1582: Showings of the Shroud on the occasion of a fresh pilgrimage by Cardinal Charles Boromeo to Turin, with Cardinal Gabriel Paleotto as another of the officiants. These showings are recorded on a rare print preserved in the Ufficio Manoscritti e Rari of Turin's Biblioteca Civica.


• May 4, 1604: Showing of the Shroud in the presence of Duke Charles Emanuel I and his Court.


• February 14, 1606: Private showing of the Shroud to Silvestro da Assisi-Bini, father general of the Capuchin order, an offshoot of the Franciscans.


• May 9, 1606: Public showing. The crowd swelled by 40,000 foreigners who had come to Turin to see the Shroud.


• 1608: The thirtieth anniversary of the Shroud's arrival in Turin. A print issued to mark the occasion is preserved in London's British Museum.


• 1620: Shroud shown in the castle piazza to mark the marriage of Duke Vict or Amadeus with Christine of France.


• June 16, 1633: Public showing of the Shroud in the Castle Piazza, Turin.


• May 4, 1635: Public showing of the Shroud in the Castle Piazza, Turin


• 1638: Private showing of the Shroud at Turin for St.Jeanne Franeoise de Chantal, founder of the Order of the Visitation.


• 1640: Shroud exhibited as an expression of thanks for the release of Turin from plague. A painted copy of the Shroud preserved at the Castillo de Garcimunoz was 'extractum ex originali' at this time.


• 1642: Solemn showing of the Shroud to mark the conclusion of peace between the princes of Savoy, in the presence of Christine of France, Duchess of Savoy, her young son Charles Emanuel II, and the princes Maurice and Thomas of Savoy.


• May 4, 1647: At a public showing this year, held in the Cathedral, some of the enormous crowd died of suffocation.


• May 16 and 17, 1663: Exposition of the Shroud in the Cathedral of Turin is delayed from the normal May 4 date to coincide with the wedding of Duke Carlo Emanuele II of Savoy with Francesca d'Orleans. The copy of the Shroud preserved in St. Paul's Church, Rabat, Malta was placed in contact with the Shroud at this time.


• 1665: Showing of the Shroud in the Royal Chapel, in the presence of Archbishop Michele Beggiano, to mark the marriage of Duke Charles Emanuel II with Maria de Savoy-Nemours.


• May 14, 1665 (Feast of the Ascension): Shroud is shown in public before a huge crowd, held up by seven bishops.


• March 24, 1666: Private showing for Duke Maximilian of Bavaria.


• May 4, 1666: Public showing conducted by the Archbishop of Turin and four bishops.


• May 4, 1667: Public showing, with ambassador Morosini of Venice in attendance.


• June 1st, 1694: The Shroud is brought solemnly into the Guarini Chapel where it has remained almost uninterruptedly for over three centuries.


• May 4, 1722: Public showing.


• May 4, 1737: Public showing of the Shroud to mark the royal marriage, commemorated by a print showing a vast crowd in front of the royal palace, as the Shroud is displayed from a balcony.


• June 29, 1750: Showing of the Shroud, presided over by Cardinal Delle Lan ze, to celebrate the marriage of Prince Victor Amadeus (III) with Maria Antonia of Bourbon, Infanta of Spain.


• June 16, 1769: Private showing of the Shroud for Emperor Joseph II of Hapsburg-Lorraine [?]. Shown in the Cathedral from the balcony of the Royal Chapel for the large crowd gathered in the Cathedral.


• October 15, 1775: Marriage of Piedmont Prince Charles Emanuel (IV) with Princess Marie Clotilde of France marked by showing of the Shroud with same ceremonial used in 1750.


• December 9, 1798: Forced to leave Turin and withdraw to Sardinia, Charles Emanuel IV (1796-1802), venerates the Shroud with the rest of the royal family before their departure.


• November 13, 1804: Private showing of the Shroud for the visit to Turin of Pope Pius VII, virtually a prisoner en route from Rome to Paris to crown Napoleon, who would be crowned by none other than the Pope. According to Sanna Solaro '.. The Pope knelt down to venerate it, then examined it in every part, kissing it with tender devotion'. Seven cardinals, eight bishops and many other notables were present.


• May 20, 1814: Solemn showing of the Shroud to mark the return of the monarchy, in the person of King Victor Emanuel. This is the first full public showing of the Shroud since 1775.


• May 21, 1815: Pope Pius VII's second presiding over an exposition of the Shroud, this time marking his return to Italy after Napoleon's defeat. He personally displays it from the balcony of the Palazzo Madama. On the Shroud being returned to its casket the latter is sealed with the papal and royal seals.


• January 4, 1822: Showing of the Shroud to mark the start of the reign of Charles Felix, following the abdication of his brother Victor Emanuel I. This is held out first in the Royal Chapel, in the presence of the royal family, then displayed from the Chapel balustrade for the benefit of the ordinary populace in the Cathedral below.


• May 4, 1842: Showing of the Shroud to mark the marriage of Crown Prince Victor Emanuel (II) with Maria Adelaide, Archduchess of Austria. Lithographs show the Shroud being exhibited from a balcony of the Palazzo Madama. The making of a daguerreotype of the Shroud on this occasion is considered but rejected.


• April 24-27, 1868: During the brief archbishopric of Alessandro Richards dei Conti di Netro, marked by exceptional pastoral care, a showing of the Shroud is held to mark the marriage of Prince Umberto with Princess Margaret. Instead of a brief holding up of the cloth in the cathedral or from a balcony of the Palazzo Madama as had happened in 1815 and 1842, the Shroud is properly displayed on a board on the cathedral high altar for four days.


• April 28, 1868: Princess Clotilde of Savoy (1843-1911), daughter of Victor Emanuel II and wife of Prince Gerolamo Napoleon, changes the Shroud's former lining cloth of black silk that had been sewn on by Bl. Sebastian Valfre back in 1694, substituting for it one of crimson taffeta. An official record of this, with sample of the former black silk lining, is preserved in Turin. On this same date the Shroud is 'scrupulosamente' measured by Monsignor Gastaldi, then bishop of Aluzzo, and later archbishop of Turin, and found to be 410cm. x 140 cm.


• May 28, 1898: Public exhibition. Secondo Pia, an Italian amateur photographer, makes the first photograph of the Shroud of Turin. It ushers in a new era in the Shroud's history, the era of science.


• 1900: Canon Ulysse Chevalier's Etude critique sur l'origine du Saint Suaire de Lirey-Chambry-Turin is published in Paris, detailing the d' Arcis memorandum and other mediaeval documents indicating the Shroud's fraudulence.


• April 21, 1902: (Monday afternoon) Agnostic anatomy professor Yves Delage presents a paper on the Shroud to the Academy of Sciences, Paris, arguing for the Shroud's medical and general scientific convincingness, and stating his opinion that it genuinely wrapped the body of Christ. (Evening) Secretary for the physics section of the Academy, Marcelin Berthelot, inventor of thermo-chemistry, and a militant atheist, orders Delage to rewrite his paper (for publication in the Comptes rendus de l' Acadmie des Sciences) so that it treats only on the vaporography of zinc and makes no allusion to the Shroud or to Christ.


• April 23, 1902: Paris edition of New York Herald carries headline, 'Photographs of Christ's Body found by science'.


• April 27, 1902: Paris edition of New York Herald carries headline, 'Scientists Denounce Turin's Holy Shroud. M. Leopold Delisle tells Academy of Inscriptions "the claim has not been proved"'.


• 1918: Alarmed by the danger of air raids from the World War then raging, King Victor Emanuel III orders the Shroud to be put in a place of safety, on condition that it does not leave the Royal Palace. A secret underground chamber is specially constructed two floors below ground level in the south-east side of Turin's Royal Palace, with not even the contractors told its purpose. On the floor of this chamber is set a large strongbox with a complex combination lock. On 6 May the casket of the Shroud is removed from the Royal Chapel (in which it has lain undisturbed since 1898). It is wrapped in a thick blanket of asbestos, put in a chest made of tin plate, hermetically sealed with cold solder, then carried down to the secret chamber, where it is solemnly locked inside the strongbox. Prayers are recited, after which the chamber's heavy entrance doors are locked.


• May 3-24, 1931: Eighth public exhibition on the occasion of the marriage of Prince Umberto of Piedmont, later to become Umberto II of Savoy, to Princes Maria Jos of Belgium. Cardinal Fossati officiates. Two million visitors flock to Turin for this occasion.


• May 23, 1931: Giuseppe Enrie photographs the Shroud, confirming Secondo Pia's findings. He takes three pictures of the Shroud face, one life-size; also a detail of the shoulders and back, and a seven-fold enlargement of the wound in the wrist. The photography takes place in the presence of the now seventy-six year old Secondo Pia and scientists of the French Academy. In this same year and the following one, Dr. Pierre Barbet conducts experiments on cadavers to reconstruct the Passion of Jesus as exhibited in the Shroud's bloodstains and wound marks.


• September 24 to October 15, 1933: At the request of Pope Pius XI the Shroud is exhibited as part of the celebrations for Holy Year. The young Salesian priest Fr. Peter Rinaldi, fluent in French and English, as well as Italian, acts as interpreter. On the final day, 15 October, the Shroud is held out in daylight on the steps of the cathedral where Dr. Pierre Barbet views it from a distance of less than a yard. He writes: 'I saw that all the images of the wounds were of a color quite different from that of the rest of the body, and this color was that of dried blood which had sunk into the stuff. There was, thus, more than the brown stains on the Shroud reproducing the outline of the corpse. The blood itself had colored the stuff by direct contact. It is difficult for one unversed in painting to define the exact color, but the foundation was red ('mauve carmine' said M. Vignon, who had a fine sense of color), diluted more or less according to the wounds'.


• 1937: Father Edward Wuenschel, a teacher at the Redemptorist school at Mt. St. Esopus, New York, with a strong interest in the Shroud, corresponds with Giuseppe Enrie and Paul Vignon. He and Vignon collaborate on an article for Scientific American and, later in the year, he founds the American Commission on Studies of the Holy Shroud. Although it lasts less than two decades, it gains the distinction of being the first Shroud research organization in America.


• 1938: Publication of Paul Vignon's Le Saint Suaire de Turin devant la science, l' archologie, l' histoire, l' iconographie, la logique, by far the most definitive book on the Shroud published up to that time.


• May 1939: First National Congress on Shroud Studies held in Turin, with some twenty papers presented, including Dr. Maser' 'The Verdict of Forensic Medicine upon the Imprints on the Shroud', and Cecchelli', 'The Dependence of Early Byzantine Iconography upon the Face on the Turin Shroud'.


• September 1939: The outbreak of World War II brings European Shroud research to a halt. The Shroud is secretly taken for safety to the Benedictine Abbey of Montevergine, in the province of Avellino, northeast of Naples. There are brief stops in Rome and Naples on its journey.


• September 25, 1939: The Shroud arrives at the Abbey. Only the Prior, the vicar general and two of the monks are entrusted with the knowledge of what they are protecting.


• June 1946: The Italian people vote for a republic, ending the rule of Umberto II of Savoy, the Shroud's legal owner.


• October 28, 1946: The Shroud is exhibited to the monks of Montevergine prior to its post-war return to Turin. It is laid on a table in the abbey's reception hall, but strict orders are given that no one should directly touch it. The Shroud returns to Turin and its traditional housing in the Royal Chapel. However, with the fall of the monarchy, and because the Chapel is part of the now state-owned Royal Palace, the Shroud is technically on Italian state territory.


• 1950: International Sindonological Congress held, as part of Holy Year celebrations, at the Palazzo della Cancelleria, Rome. Pope Pius XII sends telegram of benediction. In Esopus, New York, Father Adam Otterbein, now responsible for the Shroud work begun by Father Wuenschel, begins distributing pamphlets of some of his mentor's manuscripts. He decides on "Holy Shroud Guild" as a simple mailing address.


• October 6, 1951: The Holy Shroud Guild is canonically erected as a Pious Sodality of the Venerators of the Most Holy Shroud of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Its founder and first president is Rev. Adam J. Otterbein. Father Wuenschel, away in Rome, is named Honorary President. There were also two Councilors, Fr. Francis Filas and Fr. Peter Rinaldi.


• Holy Week 1954: British war hero, Group Captain Leonard Cheshire VC, having become inspired by the Shroud face while recuperating from tuberculosis, uses touring bus to tour Britain with an exhibition of Shroud photographs.


• Easter 1955: Group Captain Cheshire publishes articles on the Shroud in the British Picture Post and Daily Sketch.


• May 11, 1955: Cheshire receives letter from Mrs. Veronica Woollam of Gloucester, asking if her ten-year-old daughter Josephine, crippled with osteomyelitis in the hip and leg, 'could be blessed with the relic of the Holy Shroud'. Unable to travel by air because of his lungs, Cheshire takes Josephine and her mother by train, first to Portugal, for ex-King Umberto's permission, then to Turin in the hope of her being healed via the Shroud. The Shroud is taken out of its casket, its seals are broken and Josephine is allowed to put her hand in beneath the silk covering. But it is not unrolled. Although there was no immediate change in Josephine's condition, she later recovers to lead a normal life, though she will die young.


• December 18, 1959: Formation of the Centro Internazionale di Sindonologia, the Turin International Center for the Turin Shroud.


• 1960: British Shroud enthusiast Vera Barclay writes to scientists at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE), Harwell, regarding the viability of radiocarbon dating the Shroud. Dr. J. P. Clarke and P. J. Anderson respond, expressing serious doubts.


• December 17, 1961: Death of Dr. Pierre Barbet.


• January 6, 1964: Rev. Edward A. Wuenschel, a Roman Catholic theologian, historian and one of the founders of the Holy Shroud Guild, dies of a heart attack at the age of 65.


• June 16-18 1969: On the orders of Turin's Cardinal Michele Pellegrino, the Shroud is secretly taken out of its casket for its state of preservation to be studied by a team of experts. These examine, photograph and discuss for three days, but do no direct testing. During this same period, and with the Shroud hung vertically for the purpose, Giovanni Battista Judica-Cordiglia takes the first ever Shroud photo in color, also fresh black and white ones, and ones by Woods light.


• October 1, 1972: Attempt to set fire to the Shroud on the part of an unknown individual who breaks into the Royal Chapel after climbing over the Palace roof. The Shroud survives due to its asbestos protection within the altar shrine.


• October 4, 1973: Dr. Max Frei and others, assembled in Turin's Hall of the Swiss and with the Shroud apparently in a frame before them, notarize as authentic the Shroud photographs taken by Giovanni Battista Judica-Cordiglia. Although it is not stated, the Shroud would seem to have been brought out on this occasion as a test-run/frame fitting for the TV exposition seven weeks later.


• November 22, 1973: (Thursday) The Shroud is displayed in the Hall of the Swiss, within Turin's Royal Palace, in preparation for its first ever television showing. International journalists and some serious researchers on the subject, including Britain's Dr. David Willis and Fr. Maurus Green, are allowed to view the Shroud directly during this time.


• November 23, 1973: (9.15-9.45 p.m.). The Shroud is exhibited for the first time ever on television, in color, and with a filmed introduction by Pope Paul VI.


• November 24, 1973: The Shroud is secretly examined by a new Commission of experts, brought together by Cardinal Pellegrino. On this occasion Professor Gilbert Raes takes from one edge of the Shroud's frontal end one 40x13-mm sample, also from the side-strip one 40x10-mm portion, together with one 13-mm warp thread and one 12-mm weft thread. Dr. Max Frei, Swiss criminologist, is among the other specialists present, and is allowed to take 12 samples of surface dust from the Shroud's extreme frontal end, using adhesive tape to remove these. The Shroud is returned to its casket the same evening.


• February 19, 1976: In the U.S.A., at Sandia Laboratories, Dr. John Jackson and Bill Mottern view the Shroud three-dimensional characteristics for the first time using a scienfific instrument called a VP8 Image Analyzer. It is a moment that would prove to be significant in Shroud history, since it catalyzed the interest of a diverse group of scientists that eventually would become the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP). They ultimately would spend 120 hours performing the first ever, in-depth scientific examination of the Shroud in its history. Also present were future STURP team members Dr. Eric Jumper, Ken Stevenson and Don Devan.


• April 1976: Release of Report of the Turin Scientific Commission, with the first public information of the pollen findings of Dr. Max Frei, who claims that the Shroud's dust includes pollens from some plants that are exclusive to Israel and to Turkey, suggesting that the Shroud must at one time have been exposed to the air in these countries.


• March 23-24, 1977: First U.S. Conference of Research on the Shroud, at the Ramada Inn, Albuquerque, New Mexico, attended by Frs. Rinaldi and Otterbein, Rev. David Sox, Dr. John Robinson, filmmaker David Rolfe and many members of what would become the STURP team.


• May 1977: First experimental use, at Rochester University, New York State, U.S.A., of the accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) method of radiocarbon dating, by which very much smaller samples can be dated than had previously been thought possible. This is the method that will be used to date the Shroud. One of the leading pioneers of this method is Rochester University's Professor Harry Gove.


• June 24, 1977: Rev. David Sox, General Secretary of the newly formed British Society for the Turin Shroud, writes to Professor Harry Gove of Rochester, following an article in Time magazine about the new radiocarbon dating technique.


• September 16-17, 1977: A Symposium on the Shroud held at the Anglican Institute of Christian Studies, London, with Drs. Jackson, Jumper, Frei, and McCrone among the speakers, also Frs. Rinaldi and Otterbein, Monsignor Ricci, and Don Coero-Borga.


• January 20, 1978: Anastasio Ballestrero, the new Archbishop of Turin, announces that the Shroud is to be publicly exhibited from 27 August to 8 October of this year, with an International Congress on the last two days.


• June 3-4, 1978: In Colorado Springs, U.S.A., John Jackson Eric Jumper's group of scientists meets for a conference to plan their scientific testing of the Shroud.


• August 6, 1978: Sudden death of Pope Paul VI, who had expected to visit Turin to view the Shroud during the period of the expositions, one of his only two out-of-Rome engagements pencilled in for the autumn. Convening of conclave to elect the next Pope.


• August 26, 1978: The Shroud is exhibited at inaugural Mass on the first day of a five-week-long period of expositions commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Shroud in Turin. It is the first public exhibition since 1933. In the very same hour of the inaugural Mass, Cardinal Luciani of Venice is proclaimed Pope in Rome, becoming Pope John Paul I, to live just thirty-three days more. During the five weeks the Shroud is publicly displayed, more than 3.5 million visitors view the cloth.


• September 1, 1978: Among the pilgrims who view the Shroud on this day is Karol, Cardinal Woytywa of Poland, shortly to become Pope John Paul II.


• September 2-3, 1978: In Amston, Connecticut, Dr. John Jackson's group of scientists, at this time calling themselves the United States Conference of Research on the Shroud of Turin, meet to finalize their plans, following Turin having agreed to a twenty-four hour test period on 9 October. This meeting would become known as the "Dry Run" and was the first time that the entire team assembled together. They spend their time reviewing the planned experiments and testing their equipment, including the special table designed to hold the Shroud. They also sign the agreement that formally creates the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP).


• September 28, 1978: Sudden death of Pope John Paul I. While Cardinal of Venice he had planned to visit the Shroud on 21 September and was rumored to have been intending a quiet private visit before the close of the exposition.


• September 29, 1978: The STURP team departs the United States for Turin under a cloud of doubt, concerned that the death of the Pope John Paul I the night before might cause the cancellation of their testing.


• September 30, 1978: The STURP team arrives in Turin. Some of their luggage is lost and Italian Customs authorities hold all eighty cases of their test equipment, refusing to release any of it. One particularly delicate piece of x-ray equipment needs to be filled with liquid nitrogen or it will be damaged beyond repair. Access is denied.


• Early October, 1978: En route to Turin to take part in the Second International Symposium on the Shroud, Professor Harry Gove stops off in Oxford to inform Hall of Oxford about the possibility of radiocarbon dating the Shroud. Although Hall does not yet have an AMS facility, he expresses himself and his colleagues as being very enthusiastic to 'get in on the act'.


• October 1-5, 1978: The STURP team, originally planning to use the week to set up and test their equipment, spends their time holding planning meetings three times a day and making continued attempts to get the equipment released by Italian Customs.


• October 5, 1978: At 2:30 p.m., the truck bearing eighty cases of delicate STURP equipment finally enters the courtyard of the Royal Palace. The team begins the task of unloading the truck and moving the crates of instruments into the Hall of Visiting Princes. They are five days behind schedule. The first piece of equipment opened by the STURP team is the delicate x-ray device requiring the liquid nitrogen. To everyone's amazement, there is just enough of the cold liquid remaining in the device to keep the delicate tube functioning. It has lasted days beyond its rated capacity.


• October 6-7, 1978: The STURP team works around the clock to prepare the palace and unpack and setup their equipment. A number of team members leave the palace to attend the Symposium.


• October 7-8, 1978: Second International Symposium on the Shroud is held at the Istituto Bancario San Paolo, Turin, at which Gove's new method is announced. Jackson and Jumper attend and present their work.


• October 8, 1978: At around 10:45 p.m., and slightly ahead of schedule, the Shroud is removed from public display and taken through the Guarini Chapel into the Hall of Visiting Princes within Turin's Royal Palace. Thus begins a five-day period of examination, photography and sample taking by STURP, John Jackson's group of scientists from the U.S.A. Dr. Max Frei, Giovanni Riggi, Professor Pierluigi Baima-Bollone and others carry out independent research programs alongside. During this time the Shroud is lengthily submitted to photographic floodlighting, to low-power X-rays and to narrow band ultraviolet light. Dozens of pieces of sticky tape are pressed onto its surface and removed. A side edge is unstitched and an apparatus inserted between the Shroud and its backing cloth to examine the underside, which has not been seen in over 400 years. The bottom edge (at the foot of the frontal image) is also unstitched and examined. On the night of 9 October Baima Bollone obtains sample of Shroud bloodstain by mechanically disentangling warp and weft threads in the area of the 'small of the back' bloodstain on the Shroud's dorsal image.


• October 8-12, 1978: STURP continues its around-the-clock examination of the Shroud, performing dozens of tests, taking thousands of photographs, photomicrographs, x-rays and spectra. A total of 120 continuous hours of testing is done, with team members working on different parts of the Shroud simultaneously. This is the most in-depth series of tests ever performed on the Shroud of Turin.


• October 13, 1978: (Friday) STURP completes their scientific work during the evening of this day. The Shroud is returned to its casket the following morning. En route back to New Mexico Dr. Ray Rogers stops off in Chicago and hand-delivers to Dr. Walter McCrone's laboratory thirty-two of the sticky tape samples taken from the Shroud.


• December 25, 1978: Dr. Walter McCrone begins examination of image samples from the Shroud.


• February 1979: Gove and colleagues write to Archbishop Ballestrero of Turin, formally offering to radiocarbon date the Shroud using their new method.


• March 24-25, 1979: STURP holds its 'First Data Analysis Workshop' on the Shroud, in Santa Barbara, California. According to their preliminary findings, the image shows no evidence of the hand of an artist; the body image does not appear to be any form of scorch; and the blood image was probably present before the body image. But Walter McCrone claims he has found evidence of an artist and stuns the meeting by stating, "anybody who is emotionally wrapped up in the Shroud should start to consider the possibility that he better relax his emotions." McCrone's views are not shared by STURP. Thus begins a highly polarized, long-term, often adversarial relationship between McCrone and STURP.


• October 12-14, 1979: The STURP team meets at Los Alamos National Laboratory near Albuquerque, New Mexico, to review, compare and correlate data from the various tests performed on the Shroud and celebrate the first anniversary of their examination. Reports are presented for each experiment and each team member provides an update of his work. Father Francis Filas presents his "Coin Theory" for the first time.


• April 13, 1980: On a visit to Turin Pope John Paul II has a private showing of the Shroud and kisses the cloth's hem.


• September 11, 1980: Dr. Walter McCrone lectures to the British Society for the Turin Shroud in London, again claiming the Shroud to be the work of a mediaeval artist who painted in iron oxide, using a very dilute tempera binding medium. British journalist Peter Jennings publishes the news without authorization.


• October 17-19, 1980: A group of key STURP scientists meets in Espanola, New Mexico, to review a rough draft of the group's summary paper. The paper is scheduled for release sometime before the expiration of STURP's formal agreement with its team members, in October 1981.


• May 13, 1981: (Wednesday) STURP team members Dr. John Jackson and Larry Schwalbe, along with Fr. Adam Otterbein and Fr. Peter Rinaldi, are in St. Peter's Square awaiting an audience with Pope John Paul II to report to him on the 1978 testing when the Pope is shot by Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca. The audience never takes place.


• May 15, 1981: Dr. John Jackson and Larry Schwalbe of STURP, together with Frs. Adam Otterbein and Peter Rinaldi, visit ex-King Umberto II of Savoy in Cascais, Portugal, to report on the 1978 testing.


• October 10-11, 1981: The STURP team meets at Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut, for an invitation-only symposium closed to the public. The meeting, planned for the final review of the group's scientific work, is sidetracked and filled with conflict over the early release of a team member's book and the lawsuit initiated against him and his publisher by STURP's Board of Directors. The meeting also marks the official expiration of the group's original written agreement with its team members and brings to a close the most productive period of its history.


• December 1981: STURP informs the Turin authorities that the Arizona, Brookhaven, Oxford and Rochester laboratories have all agreed to participate in a radiocarbon- dating of the Shroud.


• July 1982: The British Museum Trustees agree that their Keeper of Scientific Services should act as supervisor of any project to demonstrate satisfactory carbon dating of textiles, prior to any dating of the Shroud. AERE Harwell and the Zurich AMS facility are added to the list of laboratories willing to participate in any radiocarbon dating of the Shroud.


• October 28-30, 1982: Six of STURP's team members present papers at the International Conference on Cybernetics and Society, sponsored by the IEEE in Seattle, Washington.


• January 14, 1983: Death of Dr. Max Frei, leaving unfinished the book he was writing on his pollen findings. His estate, with all his Shroud materials, passes to his widow Gertrud and their son Ulrich.


• March 18, 1983: Death of ex-king Umberto II in Cascais. The Shroud's formal owner, his will discloses that he has bequeathed the Shroud to the Pope and his successors, with the proviso that the cloth stays in Turin.


• May 25, 1983: The Centro Mexicano de Sindonologia was founded on this date in Mexico City. Cardinal Ernesto Corripio Ahumada was named Honorary President of the Centro.


• August 31, 1983: Death of Monsignor Jose Cottino, in Turin on 31 August 1983. Msgr. Cottino was born in New Bedford (USA) on 10 May1913 and was a direct observer during the entire STURP examination of the Shroud in 1978.


• October 16, 1984: Dr. John Jackson and Tom D' Muhala present Cardinal Ballestrero with proposals for further scientific work on the Shroud. They have quietly formed a new group called "STURP II" and enlisted the participation of many of the original team members. Their efforts would be in vain.


• February 15, 1985: Jesuit priest Father Francis Filas, best known for his controversial discovery of inscriptions on the coins in the eyes of the man of the Shroud, dies of a heart attack in his residence at Loyola University, Chicago, at the age of 69. His claims that the inscriptions could be used to date the cloth to the first century were widely publicized and garnered both praise and criticism from the scientific community. Filas was also one of the founding members of the Holy Shroud Guild.


• June 1, 1985: At a meeting in Trondheim, Norway, Dr. Tite and Richard Burleigh of the British Museum, London, release the results of an inter-comparison experiment conducted between six radiocarbon dating laboratories, some using the old proportional counter method, others the new AMS method pioneered by Dr. Harry Gove. One of the samples was a 4,000-year-old Egyptian mummy wrapping for which one of the laboratories, Zurich, produced a 1000-year error due to faulty pre-treatment. Despite this gaffe, the experiment is seen as opening the way for a radiocarbon dating of the Shroud. Dr. Harry Gove sets in motion plans for a meeting of the six laboratories and the British Museum to agree on a working procedure for the Shroud dating. It is suggested that the Pontifical Academy of Sciences be contacted.


• August 1985: This idea is submitted to Professor Carlos Chagas, President of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Rome.


• October 1985: Professor Gove meets with Professor Chagas in New York to discuss the holding of a workshop of all parties interested to radiocarbon date the Shroud.


• November 1985: Professor Chagas intimates that there will soon be a meeting to discuss the dating of the Shroud.


• January 1986: Paul Maloney of the U.S. Shroud group ASSIST receives from Dr. Max Frei's widow two copies of Frei's unpublished manuscript, together with five of the sticky-tape samples he took in 1978.


• February 1986: Professor Gove meets with Turin's Professor Gonella in New York, who insists that the proposed radiocarbon-dating workshop be held in Turin.


• February 16, 1986: Shroud Conference at Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, at which some of Dr. Max Frei's pollen samples are examined by the attendees, who include Walter McCrone. McCrone almost immediately confirms observing pollen.


• April 1986: Professor Chagas sends out invitations for the workshop meeting to take place in Turin on 9-11 June. Chagas has revealed this to the British journalist Peter Jennings, who publishes the story, precipitating heated feelings concerning this disclosure.


• May 16, 1986: The Pontifical Academy of Sciences sends a cable, postponing meeting to discuss the carbon dating of the Shroud.


• May 27, 1986: Dr. Harry Gove, with Professor Hall of Oxford and British Museum Director Sir David Wilson as co-signatories, cables Cardinals Casaroli and Ballestrero, angrily protesting the postponement and warning that several institutions may withdraw.


• September 29 to October 1, 1986: Representatives of several radiocarbon dating laboratories at last meet in Turin, under Professor Chagas' chairmanship, to discuss the best 'protocol' for radiocarbon dating the Shroud. A protocol is drawn up for seven laboratories (five AMS, two small-counter) to take part, the AMS facility at Gif-sur-Yvette, France, having been added to the list. This is then submitted to both the Pope and the Cardinal of Turin.


• October 6, 1986: News of the meeting is released to the world's press.


• April 27, 1987: The Turin paper La Stampa publicly quotes Professor Gonella as saying that only two or three laboratories would be involved in the testing.


• July 1, 1987: Representatives of the seven laboratories write a letter to Cardinal Ballestrero advising: 'As participants in the workshop who devoted considerable effort to achieve our goal we would be irresponsible if we were not to advise you that this fundamental modification in the proposed procedures may lead to failure'.


• October 10, 1987: Cardinal Ballestrero of Turin writes to the seven radiocarbon laboratories informing them that on the advice of his scientific advisor Professor Gonella, it is only three of their number, the Oxford, Arizona and Zurich laboratories, who have been chosen to perform the testing. Ballestrero's letter states that ' experience in the field of archaeological radiocarbon dating' was a criterion. The cardinal also advises that certain other details of the 1986 protocol have been scrapped, including any further involvement of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in the exercise. Also eliminated is the participation of Swiss textile expert Mme. Flury-Lemberg who, it had been intended, would actually physically remove the samples from the Shroud. Dr. Tite is named as the appointed supervisor for certification of the samples.


• November 1987: The directors of the three chosen laboratories warn Cardinal Ballestrero: 'As you are aware, there are many critics in the world who will scrutinize these measurements in great detail. The abandonment of the original protocol and the decision to proceed with only three laboratories will certainly enhance the skepticism of these critics'. The chosen three declare themselves 'hesitant to proceed', and request the matter be given 'further consideration'.


• January 13, 1988: The Turin newspaper La Stampa discloses that Professor Gove and Dr. Harbottle have written an open letter to the Pope, also to Nature and the director of the British Museum, deploring the rejection of the seven-laboratory protocol. They claim that the Pope has been 'badly advised' and 'that he is making a mistake if he approves a limited or reduced version of the research whose outcome will be, to say the least, questionable'.


• January 15, 1988: In a press release Gove and Dr. Harbottle conclude, 'The Archbishop's plan, disregarding the protocol, does not seem capable of producing a result that will meet the test of credibility and scientific rigor' and that 'it is probably better to do nothing than to proceed with a scaled-down experiment'. Professor Gonella declines to explain the reasons for his choice of laboratories, terming it a private matter.


• January 22, 1988: Professor Gonella and leading representatives of the Oxford, Arizona and Zurich laboratories meet in the Board Room of the British Museum, London, to discuss the best procedures to be adopted. News of this meeting is released the same evening.


• February 1988: Dr. Tite tries unsuccessfully to find control samples of weave identical to the Shroud.


• March 25, 1988: Professor Gove writes to the Pope outlining all that has transpired and appealing to him to persuade Cardinal Ballestrero to revert to the original protocol. His letter is ignored.


• April 13, 1988: (Wednesday) Professor Paul Damon holds an 'open house' for journalists at his Arizona radiocarbon dating laboratory to show them where and how the work on the Shroud samples will be done.


• April 21, 1988: At 5 a.m. the Shroud is secretly taken out of its casket. At 6.30 a.m. Dr. Tite and the representatives of the three laboratories assemble at the cathedral. In the cathedral sacristy the Shroud is unrolled and shown to assembled representatives of the three chosen radiocarbon dating laboratories. Professor Testore of Turin Polytechnic, Gonella's choice as textile expert in place of Mme. Flury-Lemberg, reportedly asks 'What's that brown patch?' of the wound in the side. Professor Riggi and Professor Gonella reportedly spend two hours arguing about the exact location on the Shroud from which the sample should be taken. During the event, it is Riggi who seems in charge of the operation. At 9.45 a.m., with a video-camera recording his every move (he will later sell copies to international media and others), he cuts a sliver from one edge and divides this into two, then divides one of these halves into three. In a separate room (the Sala Capitolare), and now unrecorded by any camera, the Cardinal and Dr. Tite place these three latter samples in sealed canisters, for the respective laboratories to take away with them. At 1 p.m. the sample taking for carbon-dating purposes is formally completed, and the laboratory representatives depart. During the afternoon, and in the presence of some twenty witnesses, Riggi takes blood samples from the lower part of the crown-of-thorns bloodstains on the Shroud's dorsal image. According to Riggi's own subsequent account, he received the cardinal's permission to take for himself both these 'blood' samples and the portion of the Shroud he cut away but which was superfluous to the needs of the carbon-dating laboratories. These samples he will deposit in a bank vault. At 8.30 p.m. the Shroud is returned to its casket.


• April 22, 1988:(Friday) The news of the taking of the samples is released to the world's press.


• April 24, 1988: (Sunday) Safely arrived back in Tucson, Damon and Donahue of the Arizona laboratory informally open the samples, immediately recognizing the characteristic weave of the Shroud on opening sample A1. A photograph taken on this occasion shows this sample to have been in two parts.


• April 25, 1988: (Monday) Formal opening of the Arizona samples, with Damon and Donahue now joined by Toolin and Jull.


• May 6, 1988: 9.50 am. In the presence of Professor Harry Gove, who has been invited to be present, the Shroud sample is run through the Arizona system. With the calibration applied, the date arrived at is 1350 AD.


• June 8, 1988: The Arizona laboratory completes its work on the Shroud.


• Week of July 4, 1988: Having delayed because of technical adjustments to their radiocarbon dating unit, the Oxford laboratory begins its pre-treatment of its Shroud sample and controls.


• July 15, 1988: At the Hotel Thalwiler Hof, Thalwil, Switzerland, Dr. Max Frei's entire collection of twenty-eight sticky-tape Shroud samples is formally handed over to the American Shroud group ASSIST.


• July 22, 1988: (Friday) Dr. Michael Tite of the British Museum receives the Zurich laboratory's radiocarbon dating findings.


• July 23, 1988: Shroud Meeting at the Academy of Natural Science, Philadelphia, in which Dr. Max Frei's sticky tape samples, just brought over from Europe, are formally and collectively studied by Dr. Walter McCrone, Dr. Alan Adler and others, under the auspices of the U.S. Shroud group ASSIST. This reveals that, in addition to pollens and fabric particles, the tapes bear a surprising proportion of plant parts and floral debris, suggesting that actual flowers were laid on the Shroud at some time during its history.


• July 27, 1988: (Wednesday) The Oxford laboratory commences its first run of its Shroud sample and controls.


• August 8, 1988: The Oxford laboratory completes its Shroud work.


• August 26, 1988: The London Evening Standard carries banner headlines declaring the Shroud to be a fake made in 1350. The source, Cambridge librarian Dr. Stephen Luckett, has no known previous connection with the Shroud, or with the carbon dating work, but in this article declares scientific laboratories 'leaky institutions'. The story is picked up around the world.


• September 18, 1988: Without quoting its source, The Sunday Times publishes a front-page story headlined: 'Official: The Turin Shroud is a Fake'. Professor Hall and Dr. Tite firmly deny any responsibility for this story.


• October 13, 1988:(Thursday) At a press conference held in Turin, Cardinal Ballestrero, Archbishop of Turin, makes an official announcement that the results of the three laboratories performing the Carbon dating of the Shroud have determined an approximate 1325 date for the cloth. At a similar press conference held at the British Museum, London, it is announced that the Shroud dates between 1260 and 1390 AD. Newspaper headlines immediately brand the Shroud a fake and declare that the Catholic Church has accepted the results.


• November 17, 1988: (Thursday) Dr. Michael Tite gives lecture to the British Society for the Turin Shroud on his radiocarbon-dating work.


• February 15, 1989: (Wednesday) In a talk at the Logan Hall, Institute of Education, London, Professor Hall lectures to the British Museum Society on 'The Turin Shroud: A Lesson in Self-Persuasion'. He very forcefully declares anyone continuing to regard the Shroud as genuine a 'Flat Earther' and 'onto a loser'.


• February 16, 1989: Publication, in the prestigious scientific journal Nature, of the official results of the Shroud radiocarbon dating. This has twenty-one signatories. It declares that the results 'provide conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is medieval'.


• March 20, 1989: (Palm Sunday) Retirement of Cardinal Ballestrero as Archbishop of Turin, to be succeeded by Giovanni Saldarini, formerly of the Milan Archdiocese. Cardinal Ballestrero temporarily remains official custodian of the Shroud.


• March 24, 1989: (Good Friday) A press release to the UK press announces that forty-five businessmen and 'rich friends' have donated 1 million to create a chair of archaeological sciences at Oxford to perpetuate the radiocarbon-dating laboratory created by Professor Edward Hall. The first incumbent is to be the British Museum's Dr. Michael Tite.


• April 28, 1989: Interviewed by journalists during a plane journey forming part of the papal visit to Africa, Pope John Paul II guardedly speaks of the Shroud as an authentic relic, while insisting that 'the Church has never pronounced on the matter'.


• May 6-7, 1989: International Shroud Symposium 'La Sindone e Le Icone' held in Bologna.


• June 4, 1989: Death of University of Arizona physicist Timothy W. Linick, one of the authors of the Nature report on the Shroud radiocarbon dating.


• September 7-8, 1989: Shroud Symposium organized by the French Shroud group CIELT is held in Paris. The speakers include Professor Michael Tite.


• September 30, 1989: New Scientist reports findings of the scientific workshop at East Kilbride that 'the margin of error with radiocarbon-dating ... may be two or three times as great as practitioners of the technique have claimed'.


• March 9 to September 2, 1990: London's British Museum holds exhibition entitled 'Fake. The Art of Deception'. This includes a life-size transparency of the Turin Shroud.


• May 4, 1990: During celebration of the Feast of the Holy Shroud in the Royal Chapel, Turin (reputedly, shortly after the words 'Ita missa est'), several chunks of stone crash to the floor from the roof ninety-eight feet above. These are due to shifts on the part of exterior sustaining arches. The Chapel is closed and a temporary canopy erected over its altar.


• September 18, 1990: Vatican press conference announces the transfer 'of the position as Pontifical Custodian for the conservation and cult of the Holy Shroud to His Excellency Monsignor Giovanni Saldarini, Archbishop of Turin'.


• June 22-23, 1991: Scholars from Italy, Spain, France, Australia and the United States gather at St. Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri, for a Symposium on the Shroud. The meeting closes with the forming of a task force to ultimately formulate an American position on conservation and further testing of the Shroud. A second meeting for this purpose is held several months later, but with little impact on sindonology.


• September 7, 1992: (Monday) The Shroud is brought out for examination in the sacristy of Turin Cathedral before five textile experts: England's Sheila Landi; Switzerland's Mechtheld Flury-Lemberg; the USA's Jeanette M. Cardamone; Italy's Silvio Diana and Gian Luigi. Optical observation only is permitted and no samples are taken. The Shroud is re-sealed in its casket.


• February 24, 1993: (Ash Wednesday) Because of the repairs to the Royal Chapel, the Shroud, without being taken out of its casket, is removed from its normal shrine in the Royal Chapel and transferred to a specially designed but temporary plate glass display case behind the High Altar, in the main body of Turin Cathedral. In poor health, Fr. Peter Rinaldi has flown from the States to be present at this transfer, but collapses and is taken to a Turin hospital.


• February 28, 1993: Death of Fr. Peter Rinaldi, one of the co-founders of the Holy Shroud Guild and, along with Frs. Adam Otterbein and Francis Filas, among the main people responsible for helping STURP obtain permission to perform their examination of the Shroud in 1978.


• April 15, 1993: American pediatrician Dr. Leoncio Garza-Valdes, a respected amateur microbiologist, gives a paper on 'Lichenothelia varnish' to the Society for American Archaeology's annual meeting at St. Louis, Missouri.


• May 1993: Dr. Garza-Valdes examines Riggi's Shroud sample in Turin.


• June 10-12, 1993: Shroud Symposium, organized by CIELT, held at the Domus Mariae conference center, on the outskirts of Rome. Among the speakers are Dr. Leoncio Garza-Valdes, who suggests that 'Lichenothelia varnish, or bioplastic coating, on the Shroud may have contaminated the Shroud radiocarbon dating'. Russian Dr. Dmitri Kouznetsov is another of the speakers. In this same year the official charter of STURP, the team that examined the Shroud in 1978, is formally dissolved by the Secretary of State for the State of Connecticut.


• February 12, 1994: Conference on the Shroud held at the University of Southern Indiana, Evansville, at which pediatrician Dr. Leoncio Garza-Valds again conveys his findings concerning a bioplastic coating on the Shroud's fibers contaminating the radiocarbon dating.


• September 2-3, 1994: Round table at the University of Texas San Antonio Health Science Center, attended by Professor Harry Gove, during which Gove views Shroud threads under the microscope and acknowledges that these certainly seem to have a substantial bioplastic coating.


• February 14-23, 1995: John and Rebecca Jackson lecture on the Shroud in Russia.


• September 5, 1995: In a broadcast on Italian television, Cardinal Saldarini announces that expositions of the Shroud will be held in 1998 and 2000.


• September 1995: Cardinal Saldarini issues statement declaring any Shroud samples in circulation other than those taken with official permission for the tests of 1978 as unauthorized. He remarks that 'if such material exists…the Holy See has not given its permission to anybody to keep it and do what they want with it' and he requests those concerned to give the piece back to the Holy See. This statement seems clearly to be directed at the samples taken by Professor Giovanni Riggi in April 1988, portions from which were procured in all good faith by Dr. Garza-Valdes.


• December 14, 1995: Death of Dr. John Heller, who with Dr. Alan Adler, made a detailed study of the chemistry of the Shroud body image and blood image samples taken by the STURP team in 1978. In 1983, Heller authored "Report on the Shroud of Turin," a book about the STURP team's examination of the Shroud that included a summary of their findings.


• January 21, 1996: The Shroud of Turin Website (http://www.shroud.com) goes online. The website is produced by Barrie Schwortz, STURP's Official Documenting Photographer during the 1978 examination. It quickly becomes the largest Shroud resource on the Internet.


• August 23-25, 1996: Father Adam Otterbein, C.Ss.R., founder and President of the Holy Shroud Guild, is the honored guest at a gathering of his friends and Shroud of Turin colleagues at the First International Holy Shroud Guild Seminar-Retreat in Esopus, New York. In attendance are a number of important sindonologists including several former STURP team members.


• April 11 & 12, 1997: Shortly after 11 p.m. fire breaks out in Turin's Guarini Chapel, quickly threatening the Shroud's bulletproof display case. Fireman Mario Trematore uses a sledgehammer to break open this case and the Shroud, in its traditional casket, is taken temporarily to Cardinal Saldarini's residence. Signs of arson are found in the Royal Chapel, the walls of which are very badly damaged. Also damaged are the whole High Altar end of the cathedral and the part of the Royal Palace directly adjoining the Chapel.


• April 14, 1997: In the presence of the Cardinal and several invited specialists, including Mme. Flury-Lemberg, Professor Baima-Bollone and Dr. Rosalia Piazza of Rome's Istituto Centrale del Restauro, the Shroud is brought out from its casket and its condition carefully examined. It is found to be completely unaffected by the fire. It is taken to an undisclosed place of safety.


• May 11-14, 1997: International Symposium on the Shroud held in Nice, France. The event is sponsored by CIELT, the French sindonology organization.


• September 13-14, 1997: A group of independent sindonologists meets in Kaufman, Texas to discuss the collection and archiving of the important and diverse Shroud materials residing in private collections in the United States. Curators of the Wuenschel and Boston collections, two of the largest collections in the world, attend.


• January 17, 1998: J. Ron London, 63, one of the original members of the 1978 STURP team and one of its x-radiographic experts, died on Saturday, January 17, 1998, in Española, New Mexico. Ron worked at group GMX-1 at Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1956 until his retirement in October 1991.


• April 18 to June 14, 1998: Public Exposition of the Shroud is held to commemorate the centenary of Secondo Pia's first photograph of the cloth, the discovery of its hidden negative image and the beginning of the scientific era of its study. Over two million pilgrims visit the Shroud during the eight week exhibition.


• May 24, 1998: Pope John Paul II visits the Shroud as it is displayed in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, in Turin. The visit occurs on the exact day that Secondo Pia made the first photograph of the Shroud 100 years earlier, on May 24, 1898. This is the first time the pope has seen the cloth since a private viewing in 1980.


• June 5-7, 1998: The Third International Congress for the Study of the Shroud is held in Turin. Nearly 100 researchers come to present their work at the well attended but poorly organized event, officially opened by the Honorable Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, President of the Republic of Italy, and Cardinal Giovanni Saldarini, Archbishop of Turin.


• June 9, 1998: Death of Father Adam J. Otterbein, C.Ss.R., co-founder of the Holy Shroud Guild.


• June 21, 1998: Death of Cardinal Anastasio Alberto Ballestrero, Archbishop of Turin from 1978 to 1989. Responsible for giving STURP permission to perform their scientific examination in October 1978, he was still Archbishop in 1988 when Shroud samples were taken and the controversial radiocarbon 14 dating was performed that concluded the Shroud was of medieval origin.


• October 17, 1998: Dr. Enrique Rivero-Borrell Vazquez, President of the Centro Mexicano de Sindonologia in Mexico City, dies this date.


• November 6-8, 1998: An invitation only meeting of American sindonologists meets in Dallas, Texas, to discuss the future of Shroud research in the United States.


• January 21, 1999: The Shroud of Turin Website celebrates its third anniversary. With more than a quarter million viewers in 128 countries, it has become the largest Shroud resource on the Internet.


• January 22, 1999: An article in the Franfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), a major newspaper in Frankfurt, Germany, announces the discovery of a previously unknown, precise copy of the Shroud of Turin in the West Bohemian Benedictine Monastery at Broumov, Czechoslovakia. The copy is accompanied by a letter of authenticity signed by the Archbishop of Turin, dated 4 May 1651.


• March 4, 1999: Rodger J. Apple, founder of the Albany Chapter Turin Shroud (ACTUS), dies at his home in Albany, New York, after a long illness.


• May 6-9, 1999: A conference with the theme, "From the Passion to the Resurrection - 2000 Years of Silent Testimony," is held in Rome, Italy. Co-sponsored by the Center of Sindonology "Giulio Ricci" in Italy and the Basilica of S. Croce in Jerusalem, the conference is primarily a local event with few international experts invited to attend.


• June 18-20, 1999: The Shroud of Turin Center of Richmond, Virginia, hosts the Richmond Conference, an international Shroud meeting with the theme "Multidisciplinary Investigation of an Enigma." The focus of the meeting is new research and sindonologists from around the world attend.


• June 19, 1999: The Vatican officially announces the impending retirement of Cardinal Giovanni Saldarini, Archbishop of Turin and Custodian of the Shroud, because of poor health.


• August 1999: A controversial article titled, "Flora of the Shroud of Turin" by Avinoam Danin, Uri Baruch and Alan and Mary Whanger is published by the Missouri Botanical Garden Press, a highly respected international botanical scientific press. Not only does the article document the pollen evidence they discovered on the Shroud in detail, but it also presents their somewhat more controversial claim of observing actual flower images on the cloth.


• September 5, 1999: Archbishop Severino Poletto, former bishop of the Diocese of Asti, the birthplace of Secondo Pia, becomes the new Archbishop of Turin and Pontifical Custodian of the Shroud.


• November 10, 1999: Roger A. Morris, original member of the STURP team that examined the Shroud in 1978, dies at his home in White Rock, New Mexico, after a short illness.


• March 2-5, 2000: An invitation-only International Symposium on the Shroud called "The Turin Shroud: Past, Present and Future," is held at the Villa Gualino in Turin, Italy. The attendees include noted sindonologists from around the world like Dr. Alan Adler, Dr. John Jackson, Dr. Alan Whanger and Ian Wilson, along with other experts who have only been peripherally involved with the Shroud in the past. Ian Wilson calls it "probably the best-ever Shroud Symposium."


• May 6, 2000: A one day Shroud Imaging Symposium called "La Sindone, dalla fotografia alla tridimensionalita" (The Shroud, photography and three-dimensionality) is held at the Sanctuary of the Holy Shroud in San Felice Circeo, Italy. Hosted by Don Augusto Bonelli, participants include Emanuela Marinelli, Aldo Guerreschi, Nello Balosino, Jose Umberto Cardoso Resende and Barrie Schwortz.


• June 10, 2000: Dr. Alan Adler, world renowned chemist, original STURP team member and one of the most important scientists in international sindonology, dies unexpectedly in his sleep. His death rocks the world of Shroud research to its foundation. Adler was the only American scientist on Archbishop of Turin Saldarini's Scientific Advisory Commission. His loss is mourned worldwide and is considered by many a serious blow to American Shroud research. (Editor's Note: Shortly after his death, the Adler family gathers all the samples of Shroud materials that were in Adler's possession (including the most important of the tape samples taken during the STURP examination in 1978 and loaned to him by Raymond N. Rogers) and returns them to the Archdiocese of Turin. Over the next year or two, Rogers makes five different written requests to the Turin authorities to have his samples returned to him, but he never receives any response).


• August 12 to October 22, 2000: A ten week public exhibition of the Shroud is held in Turin to commemorate the Jubilee anniversary of the birth of Jesus. It marks the fifth such exposition of the Shroud since it was first photographed in 1898 and modern science took an interest in the cloth. It also has the distinction of being the longest ever public exhibition in recorded Shroud history.


• August 27-29, 2000: A major International Shroud Symposium, called "Sindone 2000," is held in Orvieto, Italy. Organized by Emanuela Marinelli and other members of the Collegamento pro Sindone, researchers attend from around the world. Just a few of those presenting papers at the conference included Paul Maloney, Prof. Giulio Fanti, Dr. Alan and Mary Whanger, Rev. Albert "Kim" Dreisbach, Maurizio Marinelli, Aldo Guerreschi, Joseph Marino and Sue Benford, Isabel Piczek, Fr. Frederick Brinkmann, Kevin Moran, Prof. Daniel Scavone, Jack Markwardt, Barrie Schwortz and many more.


• October 14, 2000: Don Lynn, imaging expert from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and original STURP team member, dies unexpectedly in his sleep. Again the world of sindonology mourns the loss of one of its most well respected researchers.


• October 22, 2000: Archbishop of Turin Severino Poletto officially closes the longest Shroud Exhibition in history and announces the next planned public exhibition will occur during the next Holy Year, in 2025.


• January 21, 2001: The Shroud of Turin Website celebrates its 5th Anniversary. With visitors from 160 countries, the site continues to be the definitive Internet resource for Shroud information.


• September 12, 2001: Fr. Maurus Green, O.S.B., British Shroud scholar and author, dies at age 81.


• September 19, 2001: Dr. Robert Bucklin, world renowned forensic pathologist, original STURP team member and sindonologist with more than 50 years of Shroud research to his credit, dies in Ft. Myers Beach, Florida, U.S.A.


• October 25-28, 2001: The Holy Shroud Guild and the American Shroud of Turin Association for Research (AM*STAR) co-sponsor the 2nd International Dallas Shroud Conference in Dallas, Texas. The conference is attended by many well known Sindonologists from around the world.


• January 21, 2002: The Shroud of Turin Website celebrates its 6th Anniversary. With well over 30,000 visitors per month, the site continues to be the definitive Internet resource for Shroud information.


• April 25-26, 2002: The International Center for the Study of the Shroud of Turin (CIELT), the largest Shroud study organization in France, sponsors their fourth major symposium, the IV Symposium Scientifique International du CIELT, in Paris, France. Many researchers from around the world attend the event and present papers and abstracts regarding current and future Shroud studies.


• July 10, 2002: Death of Walter McCrone, probably the world's most well known Shroud skeptic; he was the first modern scientific researcher to publicly proclaim the Shroud of Turin a "beautiful painting." Although he was a proponent of the painting theory since 1979 and published many articles supporting this theory, he ironically made a significant contribution to sindonological research, since his work spawned countless studies worldwide, in art, chemistry, hematology and history, all aimed at challenging his conclusions. Interestingly, at the time of his death, the Shroud was undergoing a major "restoration" in Turin (see below).


• June 20 - July 22, 2002: A small group of textile experts, headed by Mechtild Fleury-Lemberg of Switzerland, perform a dramatic and radical "restoration" of the Shroud under the auspices of the Archbishop of Turin and his advisors at the Turin Center for Shroud Studies, and with the full permission of the Vatican. They remove the thirty patches sewn into the cloth by Poor Clare Nuns in 1534 to repair burn holes from the 1532 fire. They remove the backing cloth (frequently referred to as the "Holland Cloth") that was sewn onto the back of the Shroud in 1534 to strengthen the fire damaged relic. They photograph the hidden back side of the cloth and then re-attach a new, whiter linen backing cloth. They use lead weights suspended from the edges of the Shroud to "flatten" many of the creases in the cloth and apply steam to certain areas to help accomplish this. They handle the cloth without gloves or special clothing. They scrape away the charred edges of all the burned areas and collect the scrapings into small containers. During a continuous period of thirty-two days, they expose the cloth to significant amounts of potentially damaging light and the polluted air of Turin. They perform this restoration in secret, without consulting any of the world's Shroud experts (including most of their own advisors) that could have contributed important scientific guidance to ensure that no valuable scientific or historical data was lost or damaged during the restoration. They set off a firestorm of controversy, criticism, debate and recrimination that ultimately engulfs, polarizes and divides the Shroud research community. For more information on how this important event unfolded, see the 2002 Website News page. You will also want to read the Comments On The Restoration page, where fourteen noted Shroud experts express their own opinions of the restoration.


• Late 2002: After the announcement of the Shroud's "restoration" earlier in the year, a group of scientists and Shroud scholars joins together in an internet group, Yahoo ShroudScience, to discuss the scientific issues surrounding the Shroud. In 2005, the group publishes a jointly authored compilation of known scientific facts about the Shroud's image, titled, “Evidences for Testing Hypotheses About the Body Image Formation of the Turin Shroud."


• January 20, 2005: A peer reviewed scientific paper by Raymond N. Rogers, retired Fellow of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, is published in the journal Thermochimica Acta, Volume 425, Issues 1-2, Pages 189-194. Titled "Studies on the radiocarbon sample from the Shroud of Turin," the paper concludes: "As unlikely as it seems, the sample used to test the age of the Shroud of Turin in 1988 was taken from a rewoven area of the Shroud. Pyrolysis-mass spectrometry results from the sample area coupled with microscopic and microchemical observations prove that the radiocarbon sample was not part of the original cloth of the Shroud of Turin. The radiocarbon date was thus not valid for determining the true age of the Shroud." Rogers' paper is extremely important as it provides a credible scientific argument for redating the cloth to determine its actual age, and is widely reported in the media, but to a far lesser extent than the coverage given to the 1988 c-14 dating that declared the cloth a "medieval fake." Almost immediately, Shroud scholars and skeptics alike begin debating, agreeing and disagreeing with Rogers and each other.


• March 8, 2005: Raymond N. Rogers, internationally renowned chemist from Los Alamos National Laboratory and member of the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) team, dies in Los Alamos, New Mexico, after a long illness.


• April 14, 2005: Paul E. Damon, professor emeritus of geosciences at the University of Arizona, and head of one of the three laboratories that performed the radiocarbon dating of the Shroud in 1988, suffers a stroke while working in his office and dies two days later, on April 14.


• April 21, 2005: Robert Dinegar, retired physicist from Los Alamos National Laboratory and member of the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) team, dies in Los Alamos, New Mexico.


• September 8-11, 2005: The 3rd International Dallas Conference on the Shroud of Turin, jointly sponsored by The Holy Shroud Guild and the American Shroud of Turin Association for Research (AM*STAR) in collaboration with the Centro Internationale de Sindonologia, of Turin, Italy, is held in Dallas, Texas. This was the first Shroud conference to have international co-sponsors.


• September 11, 2005: Professor Silvano Scannerini, member of the Turin Conservation Commission on the Holy Shroud and a respected Shroud researcher, dies this date in Italy.


• December 14 2005: Jean Lorre, imaging expert from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and member of the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) team, dies in Pasadena, California after a brief illness.


• January 21, 2006: The Shroud of Turin Website celebrates its 10th Anniversary. With millions of visitors since it first went online, the site continues to be the definitive Internet resource for in depth Shroud information.


• April 29, 2006: The Reverend Albert R. "Kim" Dreisbach, Jr., Episcopal priest, founder of the Atlanta International Center for the Continuing Study of the Shroud of Turin (AICCSST), world renowned Sindonologist, Biblical scholar and civil rights activist, dies at the Atlanta Hartsfield Airport on his way to Italy to speak at two Shroud conferences.


• April 11, 2007: After 60 years of priesthood, Don Luigi Fossati, a keen scholar of the Shroud, dies at the age of 87. Interested in the Shroud since the 1940's, he went on to author many books, essays and articles on the Shroud and created the first filmstrips of the Shroud in 1950.


• May 11, 2007: Orazio Petrosillo, noted Italian journalist, dies after a brief illness. One of Orazio's most notable contributions was made in 2002, when he was the first person to break the story of the secret "restoration" of the Shroud, thus compelling the Turin authorities to publicly acknowledge the intervention for the first time.


• June 14, 2007: Dr. Eugenia Nitowski, noted archaeologist, Shroud scholar and founder of the Ariel Museum of Biblical Archaeology, is found dead in her apartment.


• June 24, 2007: Marcia Mascia, one of the great "behind the scenes" persons of Holy Shroud Ministry, dies after a long illness. She was best known as Fr. Peter Rinaldi's secretary, but she was one of the great organizers of the Holy Shroud Guild during the 1960's, 70's, and 80's.


• August 8, 2007: Professor Luigi Gonella, Scientific Advisor to the Archbishop of Turin, Cardinal Anastasio Ballestrero, from 1978 to 1989, including throughout the infamous carbon dating of the Shroud in 1988, dies after a short illness.


• January 5, 2008: Professor Giovanni Riggi di Numana, long time Shroud researcher and participant in the 1978 scientific examination of the Shroud, dies unexpectedly of a heart attack. After 1978 he continued his research on the Shroud and in 1988, was responsible for cutting the samples used for the C14 dating of the Shroud.


• August 14-17, 2008: Joe Marino, Sue Benford and the Shroud Science Group, organize and sponsor "The Shroud of Turin: Perspectives On A Multifaceted Enigma," an International Shroud Conference at Ohio State University, Blackwell Hotel.


• November 9, 2008: Fr. Aram J. Berard, founder of the Holy Shroud Task Force, dies in Weston, Massachusetts, after a long illness.


• December 23, 2008: Michael Minor, co-founder, Vice-president and General Council of AM*STAR, dies at his home in Kaufman, Texas, after a brief illness.


• January 16, 2009: Brendan Whiting, author of the 2006 book "The Shroud Story," dies in Sydney, Australia.


• February 18, 2009: Dr. Harry E. Gove, noted nuclear physicist credited with developing the AMS radiocarbon dating method used in 1988 to test samples from the Shroud of Turin, dies peacefully at the age of 86.


• March 25, 2009: Don Augusto Bonelli, Parish Priest and Rector of the Sanctuary of the Shroud in San Felice Circeo, Italy, at his home in Terracina. Although not as well known as others might be in the world of the Shroud, Don Augusto Bonelli was an amazing man and a devoted promoter of the Shroud throughout Italy. In addition to the beautiful church and sanctuary dedicated to the Shroud that he created in San Felice Circeo, he was also responsible for organizing two important Shroud conferences (the first in May 2000 in Circeo and the second in May 2006 in Terracina and Perugia).


• April 6, 2009: Sue Benford, dedicated Shroud researcher who helped bring to light the data regarding the anomalous nature of the 1988 c-14 sample, dies unexpectedly after a brief illness.


• April 10, 2009: Vernon D. Miller, Chief Scientific Photographer for the 1978 STURP team, dies on Good Friday, April 10, 2009, in Santa Barbara, California.


• April 10, 2009: Karl Schulz, noted Canadian Shroud scholar, dies on Good Friday, in Montreal, Canada. Although his name is not familiar to everyone, Karl was a well known and respected sindonologist and promoter of the Shroud throughout Canada.


• July 10, 2009: Don Devan, imaging scientist and member of the 1978 STURP team, dies peacefully at his home in Santa Barbara, California.


• September 23, 2009: John Brown, noted materials scientist who provided the first independent corroboration of Ray Rogers observations, dies at his home in Marietta, Georgia, after a long battle with prostate cancer.


• April 10 to May 23, 2010: The Shroud is displayed publicly for the first time since 2000, giving the public their first opportunity to see the relic since the controversial "restoration" of 2002.


• May 4 to May 6, 2010: The International Workshop on the Scientific Approach to the Acheiropoietos Images is organized by Paolo Di Lazzaro and sponsored by and held at the ENEA Research Center, in Frascati, Italy.


• August 31 to September 2, 2010: The II International Congress on the Holy Shroud, organized by the Lima Catholic Studies Center (CEC-Lima) and “Accion Universitaria” is held at the University of Lima (Peru).


• November 20, 2010: The Second National Shroud Encounter in Fátima, Portugal, organized by the Centro Português de Sindonologia (Portuguese Sindonology Center), founded in the 1980's by Dr. Lagrifa Fernandes, was held at Allamano's Missionaire Center inside the Museum of Consolata Missionaires near the Fatima Sanctuary.


• November 25, 2010: Dr. Leoncio Antonio Garza-Valdes, author of "The DNA of God," dies at the age of 71.


• April 18, 2011: Retired Cardinal Giovanni Saldarini, Archbishop of Turin from 1989 to 1999, dies after a prolonged illness at the age of 86.


• September 29, 2011: Archbishop Philip M. Hannan, who served for 23 years as the Archbishop of New Orleans and who was an ardent student and supporter of the Shroud, dies peacefully in his sleep at the age of 98.


• April 28-30, 2012: 1st International Congress on the Holy Shroud in Spain is held in Valencia, Spain. The event is sponsored by the Centro Español de Sindonologia (CES).


• June 30 - July 1, 2012: 1st International Scientific Congress on the Holy Shroud in Panama is held in Panama City, Panama. The event is sponsored by the Arquidiócesis de Panamá.


• March 3, 2013: Inauguration of a permanent exhibition of the Shroud of Turin in Panama City, Panama, produced by Peter and Dalys Soons.


• March 30, 2013: Pope Benedict XVI, in one of his last acts as Pontiff, authorizes a television only exhibition of the Shroud of Turin directly from the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin. This is the first such exhibition in 40 years, since the first ever TV exposition of the Shroud on November 23rd, 1973. Newly elected Pope Francis makes the first comments of his papacy on the Turin Shroud just hours before it airs on television.


• April 17, 2013: Shroud and Faith, A Possible Dialogue? is the theme of a Shroud Congress held this date in Rome at the Pontificia Università Lateranense. The conference was designed to create a deeper interest in the Shroud in light of the TV exposition held on March 30, 2013.


• April 19, 2013: TEDx ViaDellaConciliazione conference is held in Vatican City. The topic of this independently organized TED event was Religious Freedom Today and marks the first TED event ever held in the Vatican.


• May 4, 2013: Feast of the Holy Shroud is celebrated in a solemn ceremony in Fátima, Portugal.


• May 4, 2013: Msgr. Nosiglia, Papal Custodian in Turin, opens a month long celebration dedicated to the Shroud on the Feast Day of the Holy Shroud with a concert and a mass. The month features concerts, celebrations and reflections in memory of the Holy Shroud.


• May 23, 2013: Death of Maurizio d'Assia (Moritz Friedrich Karl Emmanuel Humbert von Hessen), Prince of Langravio di Assia-Kassel. First born of Prince Filippo d'Assia, Langravio d'Assia and of Princess Mafalda di Savoia. He was one of the persons King Umberto II of Savoy designated Executor of his Will regarding the Holy Shroud of Turin.


• May 24-25, 2013: Experts from around the world gather in Mexico City, Mexico for a conference on the Holy Shroud of Turin. The conference, titled “The Holy Shroud and the Year of Faith,” also marks the 30th anniversary of the Mexican Center for the Study of the Shroud.


• June 21, 2013: Ilona Farkas, founder of the Collegamento pro Sindone journal in Italy and who worked tirelessly on behalf of the Shroud, dies peacefully in her sleep at the age of 90.


• September 6, 2013: Dr. Frederick Zugibe, world renown medical examiner, Shroud scholar and expert on crucifixion, dies after a long illness.


• October 30, 2013: "TV" Oommen, founder of the Bible Discoveries Museum and Teaching Center in Raleigh, North Carolina, dies after a long illness.


• November 3, 2013: Death of Thaddeus J. Trenn, noted Canadian theologian, historian, philosopher and prolific author


• December 4, 2013: It is announced on this date that Pope Francis has authorized another public exhibition of the Shroud in 2015.


• December 25, 2013: Fr. Jorge Loring Miró, S.J., noted Spanish author, essayist and lecturer, dies in Malaga, Spain at the age of 92.


• January 1, 2014: Bartolome M. Saucelo, Shroud scholar, lecturer and author, dies peacefully in his home in South Bend, Indiana.


• March 1, 2014: Prof. Willy Wölfli, director of the Zurich Polytechnic at the time of the 1988 Shroud of Turin radiocarbon dating, dies this date.


• August 16, 2014: Dorothy Crispino, Shroud scholar, author and publisher of Shroud Spectrum International, dies at her home in Cavour, Italy, at the age of 98.


• September 4-5, 2014: An international Shroud conference titled, “Workshop on Advances in the Turin Shroud Investigation," is sponsored by the Technical University of Bari, Italy and the University of Bari "Aldo Moro," Italy with the technical co-sponsorship of the CIS (International Center for Turin Shroud Studies), Turin. The event was organized by the Department of Electrical and Information Engineering of the Technical University of Bari, Italy.


• October 9-12, 2014: An international Shroud conference titled, "Shroud of Turin: The Controversial Intersection of Faith and Science," is organized by Joe Marino in St. Louis, Missouri and co-sponsored by the Resurrection of the Shroud Foundation and the Salt River Production Group. More than 160 people attend the four day event.


• April 19 - June 24, 2015: The Shroud goes on public display for the first time since 2010.


• July 18, 2015: Ian Dickinson, outspoken and sometimes controversial Shroud scholar and researcher, dies after a brief illness in Canterbury, England.


• July 31, 2015: Robert William (Bill) Mottern, x-radiographic expert from Sandia Laboratory and an original member of the STURP team, dies at age 91 at his home in Shannondale, in Maryville, Tennessee. Bill secured an important place in Shroud history when he provided John Jackson, Eric Jumper, Don Devan and Ken Stevenson access to his VP-8 Image Analyzer in 1977 to view an image of the Shroud. That event, which permitted the so-called 3D properties of the Shroud to be visualized for the first time using an analog scientific instrument, became the catalyst for the founding of STURP and its examination of the Shroud in 1978. Mottern was using the VP-8 to analyze the x-rays he produced for his work at the lab and ultimately became a member of the team and participated in the direct examination of the cloth. Before his passing he donated his Shroud materials to STERA, Inc., including one of the two complete sets of the x-rays he made of the Shroud in 1978.


• December 11, 2015: Fr. Hector Guerra, L.C., passed away in Madrid, Spain after a long and courageous battle with cancer. Fr. Guerra was not well known to most of the Shroud world, but worked tirelessly behind the scenes to promote the Shroud internationally. He was at least in part responsible for the 2011 Encounter of the Two Linens in Mexico City, the 2012 CES Conference in Valencia, the 2013 TEDx ViadellaConciliazione Conference in the Vatican, the 2013 Third Encounter of the Two Linens Conference in Jerusalem and many others. He was also responsible for opening Shroud exhibits around the world and was planning more in the future when his health failed.


• December 12, 2015: Avinoam Danin, noted Israeli botanist and Shroud researcher, dies after a brief illness in Jerusalem. Avinoam was well known in the Shroud world for his analysis of the pollens found on the cloth and his somewhat controversial claims of finding many flower images on the Shroud.


• January 21, 2016: The Shroud of Turin Website (www.shroud.com) celebrates its 20th anniversary on the internet.


• February 14, 2016: Dr. Michael Clift, who served as General Secretary of the British Society for the Turin Shroud (BSTS) for more than two decades, dies after a long illness.


• March 22, 2016: Barbara Sullivan, author of a Shroud article in National Review in 1973, one of the earliest Shroud articles in a popular American magazine, dies peacefully at her home in Needham, Massachusetts.


• April 6, 2016: Dr. Marie-Claire van Oosterwyck-Gastuche, noted French Shroud scholar, dies at her home on this date. She held a PhD in Physical Chemistry, was the author of the book, Le radiocarbone face au Linceul de Turin (Radiocarbon facing the Shroud of Turin) and Superintendent of the Royal Museum of Central Africa, in Belgium. Marie-Claire was an outspoken critic of the 1988 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud and spent many years writing and lecturing on that topic.


• August 28, 2016: Rev. Harold David Sox dies at his home in Palm Springs, California after a brief struggle with colon cancer.


• September 8, 2016: Dr. Sebastiano Rodante, noted Italian pediatrician, Shroud scholar, delegate of the International Centre of Sindonology of Turin and a frequent presenter at international conferences, dies at age 92 in Syracuse, Italy.


• September 18, 2016: Prof. Gino Zaninotto, historian and Latin and Greek scholar, dies at 80 years of age. In his extensive research on the Shroud, he had carried out in-depth studies on Roman scourging and crucifixion.


• September 29, 2016: Dame Isabel Piczek, world renowned monumental sacred artist, physicist and Shroud scholar, dies in Los Angeles, California. She was best known for providing a professional artist's expert opinion on why the Shroud image is not a painting. Her artworks included murals, frescos and stained glass windows for cathedrals, monasteries, schools and convents around the world.


• February 14, 2017: Lennox Manton, dedicated Shroud scholar, long time member of the British Society for the Turin Shroud (BSTS), avid researcher and prolific author of Shroud related works, dies this date in England.


• February 23, 2017: Gina Phillips Moran Glick, M.D., noted anesthesiologist with a strong interest in the medical and forensic science aspects of the Shroud and sister of optical engineer and Shroud researcher Kevin Moran, dies in Coppell, Texas, after a long illness.


• April 2, 2017: Mario Moroni, highly respected Italian Shroud scholar and author, passes away at the age of 84 in Italy.


• June 27, 2017: David Wayne Balsiger, award-winning film producer and director responsible for several television documentaries about the Shroud, dies at age 71.


• July 19-22, 2017: An International Conference on the Shroud of Turin is held in Pasco, Washington, U.S.A. The event is titled, "Seeking Solutions to the Mysteries of the Shroud," sponsored by Mark Antonacci and his Test the Shroud Foundation and organized and managed by Robert Rucker (and family).


• October 21, 2017: Dr. Alan D. Whanger, long time Shroud scholar and researcher, dies after a brief illness at age 87.


• November 24, 2017: Diana Andry Fulbright, long time Shroud scholar, researcher and founding Board member of STERA, Inc., dies peacefully in her sleep at her home near Richmond, Virginia, after a brief illness at age 75.


• December 14, 2017: Remi G. Dubuque, noted educator, lecturer and Shroud scholar, dies this date at age 87.


• January 14, 2018: Prof. Franco A. Testore of the Polytechnic University of Turin and Director of that university's Textile Department dies this date. Testore and Gabriel Vial were the two textile experts invited to observe the cutting of the Shroud sample for radiocarbon dating on 21 April 1988, although Testore had little knowledge of the Shroud at that time.


• March 8, 2018: Robert Villarreal of Los Alamos, New Mexico, passes away after a long battle with Parkinson's disease. He is best known in Shroud circles for heading a team of eight colleagues at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2008 that verified and confirmed the observations of Ray Rogers regarding the anomalous nature of the 1988 radiocarbon dating sample.


• May 5-6, 2018: Turin's International Center of Sindonology (CIS) holds its Annual Meeting in Chambéry, France. The primary topic of discussion is a reevalution of radiocarbon dating.


• May 24, 2018: Ed Desloge of St. Louis, Missouri, passes away suddenly on this date. Over the years he was an ardent supporter and patron of Shroud researchers and organizations (including STERA, Inc.) and co-sponsored a number of Shroud events including the very successful 2014 St. Louis Conference.


• August 27, 2018: Paul Maloney, archaeologist and internationally respected Shroud scholar, dies unexpectedly while taking a nap at his home in Quakertown, Pennsylvania.


• October 26, 2018: Dr. Phillip Wiebe, noted Canadian Shroud scholar, dies peacefully in Langley, BC, Canada, after a courageous battle with cancer.


• October 30, 2018: Yannick Clément, ardent Shroud scholar, 45, of Louiseville, Quebec, Canada, dies unexpectedly. He was best known to those who followed his numerous postings on Dan Porter's Shroud of Turin blog page.


• November 9, 2018: John Klotz, long time Shroud researcher and author of "The Coming of the Quantum Christ," dies after a brave struggle with pancreatic cancer.


• January 28, 2019: Raymond J. Schneider, respected Shroud scholar, educator and member of the STERA, Inc. Board of Directors, dies at his home in Woodstock, Virginia after batttling cancer.


• March 27, 2019: Kevin Moran, optical engineer, imaging expert and devoted Shroud scholar for more than 40 years, dies at his home in Belmont, North Carolina after a brief illness.


• June 28, 2019: Oswald Scheuermann, noted German scholar and imaging researcher who made significant contributions to the study of the Shroud image, dies on this date. No other details available.


• October 3, 2019: Stephen Lukasik, a physicist who sought to apply advanced technology to national security, overseeing Defense Department research on computer networking, artificial intelligence and the detection of nuclear explosions before becoming a prescient expert on cybersecurity, dies this date of respiratory failure at his home in Falls Church, Va. He was 88. He was involved with the Shroud as a member of STURP II in 1984, but it sadly never came to fruition.


• February 4, 2020: Fr. Manuel Carreira, Spanish astrophysicist, highly regarded Shroud scholar, theologian, philosopher and Jesuit priest dies this date.


• March 28, 2020: Piero Vercelli, highly respected Italian textile expert and Shroud scholar passes away on this date.


• September 21, 2020: Prof. Luigi Fabrizio Rodella, noted Italian Shroud scholar and medical/legal expert, dies unexpectedly at age 57 in Brescia, Italy, after a brief illness.


• September 23, 2020: Dr. Douglas J. Donahue, who served as the Chairman of the Department of Physics at the University of Arizona in Tucson, dies on this date. He also served as Director of the Arizona Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory, one of the three labs that dated the Shroud in 1988.


• November 17, 2020: Ernest 'Ernie' H. Brooks II, President of Brooks Institute of Photography and a member of the STURP team that examined the Shroud in 1978, dies at age 85 on this date in Lacey, Washington.


• February 10, 2021: Roger Gilbert, Jr., original member of the STURP team and founder of the Oriel Corporation that developed and manufactured the best spectroscopic scientific instruments in 1978, dies this date at his home in Darien, Connecticut at age 88. He is survived by his wife Marion "Marty" Gilbert, who was also a member of STURP.


• August 31, 2021: Mary W. Whanger, the wife of the late Dr. Alan D. Whanger, who died in 2017, dies on this date in Raleigh, North Carolina.


• November 17, 2021: Peter Soons dies this date from a massive heart attack. Peter created the holographic images of the Shroud that are on display in exhibits around the world and that helped people better see and understand the so-called 3-D properties of the Shroud's image.


• November 26, 2021: Father Heinrich Pfeiffer, SJ, Professor of Art History and Christian Iconography, dies this date at age 85 at the Peter Faber House in Berlin. He was best known in the Shroud world as the primary promoter of the controversial Veil of Manoppello image as the true Veronica's Veil.


• February 26, 2022: Grand Opening of the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.'s exhibit, "Mystery & Faith: The Shroud of Turin." The exhibit is scheduled to run until July 31, 2022.


• July 26, 2022: Dr. Fernando Lagrifa Fernandes, respected Portugeuse Shroud scholar and co-founder of the Centro Português de Sindonologia, dies this date at age 95 after a long illness.


• December 17, 2022: Cardinal Severino Poletto, the retired archbishop of Turin and former Papal Custodian of the Shroud of Turin, dies this date at the age of 89.


• January 31, 2023: Larry Schwalbe, original STURP team member from Los Alamos National Laboratory, dies this date after a long illness.


• September 2, 2023: Mons. Giuseppe Ghiberti, internationally recognized biblical and Shroud scholar, dies this date in Turin, Italy just two weeks before his 89th birthday.


• September 27, 2023: Tom D'Muhala, former President of the STURP team who played a critical role in the adminstration and logistics for the project, dies this date at his home in Raleigh, North Carolina after a long illness.

Details from: Shroud.com