According to Christian tradition, the Image of Edessa was a holy relic made of cloth that showed the face of Jesus Christ. This was the first icon, or "image." It was also called the Mandylion, a Greek word meaning "cloth" or "towel." In Eastern Orthodoxy, it was known as an Acheiropoieton, a Greek term meaning "icon not made by hand."
In a story from the early 4th century, written by Eusebius of Caesarea, King Abgar of Edessa wrote to Jesus, asking him to come and heal him of an illness. Jesus replied, saying he could not come but promised a future visit by one of his disciples. Thaddeus of Edessa, one of the seventy disciples, arrived and brought a message from Jesus. The king was healed by the power of this message. Eusebius mentioned he had copied the actual letter from the Syriac royal records of Edessa but did not mention an image. Later, the story of an image appeared in a Syriac text called the Doctrine of Addai. In this version, the messenger, named Ananias, was also a painter who created the portrait of Jesus, which was taken to Edessa and kept in the royal palace.
The first written record of a physical image in Edessa (now called Urfa) was made by Evagrius Scholasticus around 593. He described a portrait of Christ that was believed to have divine origin and helped Edessa defend itself against the Persians in 544. The image was moved to Constantinople in the 10th century. It disappeared when Constantinople was attacked in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade. Some believe it later appeared as a relic in King Louis IX of France’s Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. This relic was lost during the French Revolution, likely because of anti-religious actions.
Eusebius did not explain how the letter from King Abgar came to be or where it was kept during the time he wrote. Robert Eisenman, a scholar, noted that the stories about the letter and image are found in many Syriac sources, with many different versions that make it hard to trace their origin to Eusebius’s account.
The Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates a feast on August 16 to honor the icon. This day marks the time the image was moved from Edessa to Constantinople.
History of the legend
The story of the Mandylion likely developed over many years. The earliest version is found in Eusebius's History of the Church (1.13.5–1.13.22). Eusebius claimed he copied and translated a real letter from the Syriac chancery documents of the king of Edessa. This letter was written by King Abgar of Edessa to Jesus, asking him to come and cure him of an illness. Jesus responded by letter, saying he would send a disciple, Thaddeus of Edessa, to heal Abgar after completing his earthly mission and ascending to heaven. At this point, there was no mention of an image of Jesus.
In AD 384, Egeria, a pilgrim from Gaul or Spain, received a personal tour of Edessa by the bishop. The bishop showed her many accounts of miracles that saved the city from the Persians and gave her copies of the letters between Abgar and Jesus, with added details. Egeria believed her version was more complete than a shorter letter she had read before. She was accompanied by a translator and spent three days examining Edessa and its surroundings. However, she did not mention seeing any image of Jesus during her visit.
The next stage of the story appears in the Doctrine of Addai (c. 400), which introduces a court painter who was part of a delegation sent by Abgar to Jesus. The painter created a portrait of Jesus to take back to Abgar:
"When Hannan, the keeper of the archives, saw that Jesus spoke thus to him, by virtue of being the king's painter, he took and painted a likeness of Jesus with choice paints, and brought with him to Abgar the king, his master. And when Abgar the king saw the likeness, he received it with great joy, and placed it with great honor in one of his palatial houses."
— Doctrine of Addai, 13
Later legends describe how the successors of Abgar returned to paganism, so the bishop placed the miraculous image inside a wall. A burning lamp was placed before the image, and the wall was sealed with a tile. The image was later discovered during a vision on the night of a Persian invasion. It had reproduced itself on the tile, and the lamp was still burning. The bishop of Edessa used oil from the image to destroy the Persians in a fire.
The image is said to have reappeared in 525 during a flood of the Daisan, a stream near Edessa. This flood is recorded by Procopius of Caesarea, a court historian. During reconstruction, a cloth with the facial features of a man was found hidden in a wall above one of Edessa’s gates.
Writing after the Persian siege of 544, Procopius mentions that Jesus’ letter, which promised "no enemy would ever enter the city," was inscribed on the city gate. However, he does not mention an image. Procopius doubted the promise’s authenticity but noted that the Persian king Khosrau I attacked partly because the promise annoyed him. The Syriac Chronicle of Edessa (540–550) also mentions divine interventions during the siege but does not describe the image.
About fifty years later, Evagrius Scholasticus in his Ecclesiastical History (593) first mentions the image’s role in saving Edessa during a siege. He describes it as a "God-made image," a miraculous imprint of Jesus’ face on a cloth. This version evolved from the original letter in Eusebius to a painted image in the Doctrine of Addai, and finally to a supernatural image created when Jesus pressed a cloth to his face, as described by Evagrius. This final version became accepted in Eastern Orthodoxy as the "image of Edessa," described as "created by God, and not produced by the hands of man." This idea of an icon called Acheiropoietos (Greek: Αχειροποίητη, meaning "not made by hand") is a later addition to the original legend. Similar stories of miraculous origins are found in other Orthodox icons.
The Ancha icon is believed to be the Keramidion, another Acheiropoietos icon. It is said to have been imprinted with Christ’s face through contact with the Mandylion. To art historians, it is a Georgian icon from the 6th–7th century.
According to the Golden Legend, a collection of hagiographies compiled by Jacobus de Voragine in the 13th century, King Abgarus sent a letter to Jesus, who promised to send a disciple, Thaddeus of Edessa, to heal him. The Golden Legend adds:
"And when Abgarus saw that he might not see God presently, after that it is said in an ancient history, as John Damascene witnesseth in his fourth book, he sent a painter unto Jesus Christ for to figure the image of our Lord, to the end that at least that he might see him by his image, whom he might not see in his visage. And when the painter came, because of the great splendour and light that shone in the visage of our Lord Jesus Christ, he could not behold it, ne could not counterfeit it by no figure. And when our Lord saw this thing, he took from the painter a linen cloth and set it upon his visage, and emprinted the very phisiognomy of his visage therein, and sent it unto the king Abgarus which so much desired it. And in the same history is contained how this image was figured. It was well-eyed, well-browed, a long visage or cheer, and inclined, which is a sign of maturity or ripe sadness."
Later events
The Holy Mandylion, a cloth believed to have been used to wrap Jesus, disappeared again after the Persian Empire conquered Edessa in 609. A local story, shared by historian Andrew Palmer during his visit to Urfa (Edessa) in 1997, says that the cloth was thrown into a well located near what is now the city's Great Mosque. However, a different Christian tradition, described in the writings of Georgios Kedrenos in Historiarum compendium, tells a different story. According to the historian John Scylitzes, in 944, when the city was attacked by John Kourkouas, the Mandylion was traded for Muslim prisoners. At that time, the cloth was taken to Constantinople, where Emperor Romanos I Lekapenos received it with great celebration and placed it in the Theotokos of the Pharos chapel in the Great Palace of Constantinople. Importantly, the oldest known image of the Mandylion or Holy Face, found at Saint Catherine's Monastery in Egypt, is dated around 945.
The Mandylion remained protected by the Byzantine Empire until the Crusaders attacked and destroyed the city in 1204, taking many treasures to Western Europe. However, no contemporary documents mention the "Image of Edessa" in this event. It has also been claimed that the Shroud of Turin, a cloth believed to have covered Jesus' body, was taken from Constantinople during the same attack. The Crusaders were led by French and Italian soldiers, and it is thought that the Shroud eventually reached France. A piece of a relic, possibly linked to the Shroud, was sold by Baldwin II of Constantinople to Louis IX of France in 1241. This relic was kept in the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris until it was lost during the French Revolution.
In 1637, the Portuguese Jesuit Jerónimo Lobo, while visiting Rome, wrote about a sacred portrait sent to King Abgar. He described seeing many relics preserved in that city, including a large part of the holy cross, pieces of the crown and thorns, the sponge used during Jesus' crucifixion, the lance that pierced Jesus, Saint Thomas's finger, one of the coins used to betray Jesus, the sacred portrait sent to King Abgar, the sacred staircase where Jesus walked, the head of Saint John the Baptist, the Column where Jesus was whipped, the Altar where Saint Peter celebrated Mass, and many other relics.
Surviving images
Three images from the past are still connected to the Mandylion today.
Author Ian Wilson has suggested that the object worshipped as the Mandylion from the 6th to the 13th centuries was actually the Shroud of Turin, folded into four parts and placed in a long, rectangular frame so only the face was visible. Wilson refers to documents in the Vatican Library and the University of Leiden, Netherlands, which appear to describe another image in Edessa. A 10th-century book, Codex Vossianus Latinus Q 69, discovered by Gino Zaninotto in the Vatican Library, includes an 8th-century report stating that a cloth in a church in Edessa showed an imprint of Christ’s entire body. This report quotes a man named Smera in Constantinople: “King Abgar received a cloth on which one can see not only a face but the whole body” (Latin: [non tantum] faciei figuram sed totius corporis figuram cernere poteris).
This image is currently kept in the Church of St. Bartholomew of the Armenians in Genoa, Italy. In the 14th century, it was given to the doge of Genoa, Leonardo Montaldo, by Byzantine Emperor John V Palaeologus.
A detailed study from 1969 by Colette Dufour Bozzo determined that the outer frame of the image dates to the late 14th century, helping to establish the latest possible time for the inner frame and the image itself. Bozzo found that the image was printed on a cloth that had been attached to a wooden board.
The image’s similarity to the Veil of Veronica suggests a connection between these two traditions.
This image was kept in Rome’s church of San Silvestro in Capite, linked to a convent of Poor Clares, until 1870. It is now displayed in the Matilda chapel in the Vatican Palace. It is enclosed in a Baroque frame added by Sister Dionora Chiarucci, the convent’s leader, in 1623. The earliest known record of the image’s existence is from 1517, when the nuns were told not to show it publicly to avoid competition with the Veil of Veronica. Like the Genoa image, it is painted on a wooden board, making it likely a copy. The image was shown at Germany’s Expo 2000 in the pavilion of the Holy See.
Veil of Veronica
Historian Rebecca Rist explains that Pope Innocent III promoted devotion to Saint Veronica partly to compete with Constantinople's Mandylion, a holy image not made by human hands. This effort aimed to raise the prestige of Rome and its pope by claiming a similar relic, the Veil of Veronica.
In later Western European traditions, the main image of Jesus' face not made by human hands became known as the Veil of Veronica. According to tradition, this cloth was given to Jesus by Saint Veronica to wipe his face during his journey to the crucifixion. The name "Veronica" may come from "true image" (in Latin, "vera icon") or from the Greek word "pherenike," meaning "bearer of blessing." Scholars are skeptical because this story appeared much later in history.
A cloth believed to be the Veil of Veronica is currently kept in the Vatican. It is said to have been brought to Italy during the Crusades. The Veil of Veronica (in Latin, "Sudarium," meaning "sweat-cloth") is often called "The Veronica" or "Volto Santo" in Italian, meaning "Holy Face." It is important not to confuse this relic with the carved crucifix known as the Volto Santo of Lucca.
The Veil of Veronica is a Christian relic believed to be a piece of cloth that bears the image of Jesus' face, as described in tradition. Some existing images claim to be the original relic or early copies of it. Scholars sometimes confuse accounts of the Veil of Veronica with the Image of Edessa, another holy image.