The First Icon
The
first icon, the MANDYLION or The Holy Napkin, sometimes called
"Made without hands" is said not only to have been an authentic
likeness of Christ, but one which Christ Himself willingly produced. It was
thus often cited both as proof of the reality of His Incarnation -- as it had been
in contact with His body -- and as justification for the iconophile position
that Christ Himself has endorsed the making of His image.
"The
Transfer from Edessa to Constantinople of the Icon of our Lord Jesus Christ
Not-Made-by-Hands occurred in the year 944. Eusebius, in his HISTORY OF THE
CHURCH (I:13), relates that when the Savior was preaching, Abgar ruled in
Edessa. He was stricken all over his body with leprosy. Reports of the great
miracles worked by the Lord spread throughout Syria (Mt.4:24) and reached even
Abgar. Without having seen the Savior, Abgar believed in Him as the Son of God.
He wrote a letter requesting Him to come and heal him. He sent with this letter
to Palestine his own portrait-painter Ananias, and commissioned him to paint a
likeness of the Divine Teacher.
Eusebius does not mention the Mandylion
directly, but he does include the letters exchanged between Christ and Abgar,
which have come down from us through tradition (the following is the
translation from the Menaia (translation by Fr. Ephraim Lash); for the
Eusebius' quote on Abgar and Christ
The
existence of The Holy Napkin is first mentioned in the 6th Century. According
to one story, Abgar V the Black, king of Edessa (capital of the Turkish
province of Oshroene, important Christian and commercial center of the Islamic
world until the 13th Century) had fallen ill and begged Christ to come and cure
him. Instead of going to visit Abgar, the Lord asked water and a cloth be
brought to Him. He washed His Face, drying it with the cloth, and His Divine
Countenance was imprinted upon it. Ananias took the cloth and the letter of the
Savior to Edessa. Reverently, Abgar pressed the holy object to his face and he
received partial healing. Only a small trace of the terrible affliction remained
until the arrival of the disciple promised by the Lord. The image was lost and
then rediscovered and it remained in Edesa. In the year 944 Edesa was sieged
and the Holy Napkin was demanded as a condition for withdrawal. It was then
carried in procession to Constantinople, where it was placed in the Sultan's
chapel in the Great Palace. The event is celebrated annually on August 16.
Later it is said to have been purchased by King Louis IX of France, in 1247,
and taken to Paris and placed in St. Chapelle. It disappeared during the French
Revolution.
The
features of Christ's face on the Holy Napkin are those of the Pantocrator. It
is not a bust because it only shows the head and part of the neck; no shoulders
are seen. The face is painted as though it is imprinted on a horizontal fringed
strip of white cloth, hence the name "napkin." The earliest surviving
example is said to date from the 10th Century and it is at St. Catherine
Monastery in Sinai. This icon has no fixed place in the decoration of a church.
The image of the Holy Napkin was also
known in the West under the name of The Veil of Veronica. The Veronica story is similar to that of
King Abgar: Veronica was a woman who comforted Jesus as He was bearing the
cross on the way to Golgotha. She offered Him a piece of cloth to wipe the
blood and sweat off His face; later she found that she received a 'miraculous
image. A building along Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem associated with Veronica is
today the home of a community of sisters called "The Little Sisters of Jesus."
