c. 1203

Anthony of Novgorod reports burial cloths

A pilgrim account places Christ’s burial cloths among Constantinople’s relics.

This is cited alongside Mesarites as evidence for burial-cloth relics in the capital before 1204. The identity of any such cloth with the Turin Shroud is unproven.

Anthony, archbishop of Novgorod, travelled to Constantinople around 1200 and left an itinerary of churches and relics. The work records what a Russian pilgrim understood to be present in the city’s sanctuaries, including items associated with the burial of Christ. Such itineraries are valuable snapshots of what pilgrims were shown and how relics were named.¹

What the surviving source says

The text’s date, manuscript transmission and vocabulary need to be distinguished. A mention of “burial cloths” is not automatically the same object as Robert de Clari’s Friday shroud at Blachernae; the writers describe different routes and may refer to separate relics. Anthony does not provide an unambiguous identification with the Turin cloth.¹²

Historical significance and limits

His account contributes to the wider record of Passion relics in Constantinople before 1204. It corroborates a devotional setting in which multiple cloth relics were present, not a continuous Shroud provenance.²³

Sources and further reading

1. Alan Friedlander, “On the Provenance of the Holy Shroud of Lirey/Turin”. Consult the cited passage in the full source and its transmission context; the article distinguishes the source’s wording from later interpretation.
2. Otangelo Grasso, The Image That Should Not Exist: A Scientific Investigation of the Shroud of Turin (2026), ch. 2, “Origins and Historical Record,” pp. 23–31, and ch. 17, “The Mandylion, Art, and the Historical Record,” pp. 232–243. Author synthesis; not an independent witness.
3. Otangelo Grasso, From Forensics to Faith (2026), ch. 2, “Pre-1355 History,” pp. 32–125, and ch. 3, “6th to 14th Century History,” pp. 126–194. The book advances a proposed reconstruction; claims are assessed here against the primary texts.
4. Otangelo Grasso, Chronological List of Pre-1356 Literature Mentioning the Shroud and Christ’s Burial Cloth (20 July 2025), pp. 1–9. Prepared with AI assistance and used as a research checklist; its identifications and confidence labels are not treated as verified facts.
5. Andrea Nicolotti, The Shroud of Turin: The History and Legends of the World’s Most Famous Relic. Further reading or contextual source retained from this event’s earlier bibliography.