What a shameful and disgusting state of affairs in Albania! The Albanian Orthodox Church is losing its treasures thanks to thieves tearing out everything from icons to whole frescoes. Not a single thief has been caught, much less charged, and the Albanian populace, until recently, have not been bothered to do anything to protect church property.
Some inside of the Protestant world, atheists and ultra-hard-line zealots of my own faith doubted the veracity of the Shroud. I saw no issue with it, less as a matter of faith than of the poor science that went into testing it. When scientists carbon-dated the Holy relic, the sample they took was from a charred piece from the 13th or 14th Century. Professor Giulio Fanti has just published a book stating that the Shroud is indeed 2,000 years old. The Telegraph has more here.
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From Pravmir:
In anticipation of Pentecost, St. Andrei Rublev’s celebrated “Trinity” icon was transferred from its place in the permanent exhibition halls of the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow to the Church of St. Nicholas in Tolmachy, a functioning church located on the grounds of the museum. This takes place annually to allow parishioners and pilgrims the opportunity to venerate this revered icon during the celebration of Pentecost. Archpriest Andrei Rumiantsev, a clergyman of the Church of St. Nicholas in Tolmachy, remarked: “In the icon of the Holy Trinity we see the fullness of the Christian conception of God, the world, and the place of man in this world.” This year the icon will be offered for veneration from June 1 to June 5.
Naysayers will never believe it. The secular world treats it as little more than a forgery. Some Orthodox consider it a trifle. I don’t. Whether the Shroud of Turin is authentic or not has no bearing on my faith, but if it truly shows the face of Christ, then it is something the our Roman Catholic (and all Christian) friends have every right to venerate if they so choose.
Before It’s News has more on the Italian study of the shroud here.