Term for a miraculous image (untraced) of Christ, believed to date from the 1st century AD. It is one of a number of holy images 'not made by human hands' whose origins are obscured in legends of the early Christian East. In the late 6th century the image was first mentioned as a miraculous icon. The fully developed 8th-century version of the legend relates how King Abgar V (reg 4 BC-AD 50) of Edessa (now Urfa in Turkey) commanded a portrait to be made of Christ but received instead a cloth miraculously imprinted with Christ's features (see EARLY CHRISTIAN AND BYZANTINE ART, fig. 67). The image became known as the Holy Mandylion (Arab. mandil: 'small cloth'). The fame and importance of the Edessan image grew as the need increased to counter arguments against the cult of images. During the Iconoclastic Controversy (726-843) the Mandylion (though still in Arab-occupied Edessa) was cited frequently by Iconophiles as proof of Christ's endorsement of image making. In 944 it was brought from Edessa to Constantinople and honoured as a prime relic of the Orthodox Church and remained there until the Crusader conquest of Constantinople in 1204, when it was sold to the French and taken to the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. It was almost certainly lost during the French Revolution (1789-99), although attempts have been made (without success) to identify the Mandylion with the Holy Shroud in Turin Cathedral.
See the Abbreviations for further details.
