The "Acheropite" Icon and the Face of Christ, The Holy Face of Manoppello and the Shroud of Turin

Archbishop Bruno Forte

(Rapino, 18 September 2011 – Study Conference on the Holy Face)

by

BRUNO FORTE

Archbishop of Chieti-Vasto

 

 

 

            I would like to present three brief reflections of a theological-pastoral nature on the relationship between icons known as "Acheropite"(Not made by human hands) and the Face of Christ, with particular reference to the Holy Face of Manoppello and the Shroud of Turin. The first reflection concerns the plausibility of an image of Christ not painted by human hands. The second considers the interpretation of the unpainted image and in the specific case of the image of the Holy Face present in Manoppello, also in relation to the Shroud. The third presents the conclusions of a pastoral and spiritual nature that can be drawn from these premises, those that most directly interest me as a pastor.

 

            1. Seeing and listening: two ways that are joined together.  Why has Christian tradition shown so much interest in so-called "acheropite" images, that is, those not painted by human hands? What is the theological plausibility of such an interest? According to biblical testimony,   the ways of perceiving the divine over time are fundamentally two: listening and seeing. To say that the biblical world is solely the world of listening -  given the objective relevance of the invitation to listen contained for example in the formula "Shema Israel Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad" - "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one" (Dt 6: 4) - is  overly simplistic. In  the  Bible  listening is  of fundamental importance because the attachment  to the Word is central  to it: however, both in the Old Testament and in  the New Testament, listening is inseparable from vision.

 

            In the First Testament we find the combining of the verb  "to see"  with terms related to hearing (for example, at Sinai  "all the people saw the voices":  Ex 20:18 according to the Hebrew text). At the climax of this conception we find Revelation 1:12: the visionary is on the island of Patmos on the day of the Lord, in a liturgical context, and hears the noise of falling waters. He then turns to "see the voice", as the Greek text says: "blèpein tén phonén". "Blépein" is the verb used to indicate an "insistent and profound look", scrutinizing, an intense observation. In the expression of Revelation 1:12 the object of this intense and penetrating gaze is the voice, "tèn phonén". The common translation  in the past was "I turned to see him speaking." This translation, however, is unfortunate, because  it overlooks the fact that the biblical tradition educates us to see what we hear. This is why the psalmist who has heard the words of the Lord wants to see the Face of God. There is a continuous need for a vision that is combined with listening: considering that in Hebrew the term "panim", face, is a plural form, with a dual meaning at times, it is understood that listening, like the vision of the Face of God, will never be truly final. If the Face is the Faces, then God also offers Himself as a tremendous quantity of Faces to be scrutinized. The plural of "panim" tells us that the search for the Face will be continuous, and that therefore the  way of the perception of the divine in time will be a continuous listening to the word to see the Face ever more deeply, up to what theological Tradition calls the vision of God face to face, eternally.

 

            It is therefore legitimate for the believer not only to listen to the Word of the Lord, but also to seek at the same time the vision of the Face of God: what  response does the biblical God give to this legitimate aspiration? What is the structure of divine self-communication in history? According to the Councils of Nicaea II  (787)  and Constantinople IV (870), which put an end to the crisis of iconoclasm, that is, of the denial of the possibility and legitimacy of sacred images, there are two ways in which God satisfies this aspiration to hear the voice, seeing the voice. According to the formula of the Fourth Constantinopolitan Council they are the "logos en syllabé" - "the  discourse in syllables", and the "graphé en kromasi", "writing in color" (DS 654). There are then two languages of the sacred, a verbal language and a visual language, and this for the faith of the Church is founded on the fact that life became visible (1 Jn 1:2), that the Word became flesh (Jn 1:14). If the Word became flesh, we can be authorized not only to hear His Word, but also to see His Face in some way.

 

            This means that God always reveals himself in a circumscribed form, whether it is a word, the circumscription of a sound, or in the graphic form of an image, of an icon, which is not by chance called "written" and not painted (hence "iconography"). Through this twofold way we are authorized to seek in a circumscribed form what God says to us, in words and images. This is why it is plausible that, just as once and for all the Word spoke of himself in the words of men and revealed himself in the flesh in his historical face, so he can manifest himself to men in a form that is not only verbal, but also sacramental, and also, by absolute gratuitousness, with an intervention that manifests itself in the form of the visible. I am not referring here to the question of subjective visions, which is very complex from the theological and spiritual point of view and requires rigorous discernment, but I believe that what has been said so far justifies why in the Christian tradition there has always been a great desire for images not painted by human hands: this desire, in short, is not illegitimate in the Christian tradition,  because it is God who established the foundation for this by the fact that he spoke, made himself visible and became man.

 

            The conclusion of this first point is modest, but absolutely important, because if we were to say theologically that no "Acheropite" image can exist, we would have to prejudicially exclude an investigation into this field: the conclusion we have reached is instead that,  if God loves to manifest Himself "in figuris", both verbally and in vision, we cannot exclude that He has left us imprints of His visible manifestation,  which derive from His making Himself present in history. Of course, these imprints are all the more eloquent the closer to the source: this is why no image will sufficiently render the strength of the encounter with the Word in the flesh as the holy places, where Jesus set his feet (one thinks of Peter's house in Capernaum or at Calvary and the Holy Sepulcher or on the road along the western perimeter of the temple, precious places because of the footprints of a Presence that were there).

 

            2. The "serious case" of the Face of Manoppello,  What interpretation should we give, then, to the image  and in particular to the image not painted by human hands? If God speaks in words and manifests himself in a handwriting in colors, it is necessary to read the handwriting, just as it is necessary to interpret the logos. This is part of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Judaism and Christianity are religions of interpretation, while Islam, which denies interpretation on principle, is not. Hermeneutics, that is, the science of interpretation, is born within the Judeo-Christian biblical and theological tradition, because God has spoken about Himself but has not totally explained himself in speaking about himself: therefore, through what he told us about himself or gave us to see for himself, we must always go further, dig into the abyss, walk towards the depths. So I try to read theologically an image considered "acheropite", that of the face of Manoppello, giving as possible some elements, obviously not affirmed absolutely, because we are not in a field in which mathematical certainty must be used, but moral certainty is enough. What does the handwriting of this Face tell us? In my opinion, there are three fundamental aspects.

            The first is the strong emphasis on the historical subject of our faith. We do not believe in a myth, we believe in a historical revelation that has passed through a man whom we recognize to be the Son of God, visible, palpable, who has been touched, seen, heard, who has spoken words. Now this appears truly clear in this Face, a Face of man that emphasizes how the subject of the accomplished revelation was the Son of God in the flesh, Jesus. The second aspect is that this Jesus manifests himself in this Face with the two fundamental characteristics of "passus et glorificatus". It is a Face that bears within itself the imprints of the Passion, but at the same time it is a Face that radiates brightness, the victory of Light over darkness: therefore, while it reminds us of the historicity of the Passion, it also reminds us of the historicity of the original testimony of the victory over death. In the Face of Manoppello the dimension of the Glorified is more perceptible than in the Shroud (even if the two faces coincide perfectly, as the research of Sr. Blandina Paschalis Schlömer has shown). In the Shroud there is more the idea of the "Christus Passus": in Manoppello one perceives the paradoxical unity of the "Passus et Glorificatus", which is also a theme of all Christian iconography, in which the Risen Christ is often represented with the wounds of the Passion. Therefore, we are faced with the paradoxical union of death and resurrection.

 

            The third indication that the image gives us is that it is not only the "Passus et Glorificatus" that is represented, but also the "Patiens et Glorificans". That is, the One we see in this image is the One who in a certain way is suffering, but is also overcoming pain, is communicating to us the victory over pain and death: the (grammatical) participles are not only in the past, but also in the present. The experience of interpreting this image is not only, then, "in illo tempore" (at that time), but it is also alive "hodie et semper" (today and forever): it is as if there were a fixation in eternity both of the act of the Passion and of the act of the Resurrection. On the other hand, in the Book of Revelation the immolated Lamb who is standing says exactly the same things: the most precious biblical source for reading this Face is then not only John 20:7 ("Peter arrives and sees the veils and the sudarium, which was on his head ..."), but also Revelation with the image of the slaughtered Lamb who is standing, of the "Christus Passus et Glorificatus" which is at the same time "Patiens et Glorificans" (Rev 5 :6).

 

            3. The history of a veil coming from the East to the West and its meaning for us. It is important to  investigate the historicity of this testimony, it is important that two types of methodologies intersect, the one linked to the sciences of the spirit and that proper to the natural sciences: it is necessary to reconstruct historically how this image is here in Manoppello to answer the two questions:  is this the image that was in Rome until the early 1500’s and that which was called the Roman Veronica? And, if this is the image which arrived in Rome in 705, is it the same image imprinted on the "soudarion" of which John speaks (20:7), later present at Camulia in Cappadocia? With regard to these questions, the arguments can only be related to the history of tradition. In addition to these types of investigation, there are then those aimed at ascertaining the consistency of the data: the cloth in front of us:  of what material is it made? The claim that it is of byssus is a particularly important statement, which as far as I know has not been absolutely proven, nor has it been disproven. And then: how was the image imprinted on this material? It is not through weaving, it is not through painting, is it a photo-impression? In order to arrive at the answer to these questions scientific methods are important. Nothing can be taken for granted if one does research in a rigorous way. Having said all this, however, some conclusions of a pastoral-spiritual nature are fundamental.

 

            In the first place,  if this image is to be contemplated without separating vision and listening, it must be done such that the reading of it is accompanied by the reading of biblical texts, especially the Book of Revelation. It will be necessary to work in this direction, to scrutinize the image with the help that comes to us from the Word of God. Secondly, it is necessary to learn to stand before this image, as  Pope Benedict XVI invited us to do in his discourse during his pilgrimage visit on September 1, 2006, as under the merciful gaze of the Lord, that is, by experiencing contemplative silence before the Word. The image of Manoppello can be an education in listening to the silence of God, which is not the silence of the mutism of those who do not speak, but it is the silence of those who speak with a language that is not that of words. Knowing how to let ourselves be looked at, placing under the gaze of Jesus' mercy the sin of the world and the expectation of humanity and letting His Face be imprinted upon us, is what matters most. What would be the point of contemplating the Face, investigating it in the most diverse ways, if all this did not lead to a deeper union with Christ? He did not come to be reproduced as an image external to us, but to live in us, as Paul says in Galatians (2:20): "It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me". Then the great spiritual fruit to be invoked is not external reproduction, but the re-presentation in us of Him, that is, that Christ dwells in our hearts by faith.

 

            And this is precisely what the Shrine strives  to offer through the service of the Word, of Reconciliation, of the Sacraments, and this is what is especially dear to me as a Bishop: that is, the Basilica of the Holy Face is a place of  holiness, a place where the image of Christ is written within us. Everything is preparation, help that must be offered with the utmost scientific seriousness, but what we must strive for is that this encounter takes place, that is, that the loving gaze with which the believer lets himself be contemplated by Christ may be the vehicle of the gift of His mercy. Observation and feedback then move along the border between great humility and serious attention to both historical and scientific research, but to support the theological-spiritual ends which I have outlined, and which are the true purpose of the pilgrimage to the Holy Face of Manoppello.

(editor's note: thanks to Paul Badde for providing me with the original Italian text of Archbishop Forte's discourse, and also for the photos)