Angel of the Arma Christi, Albi Cathedral, France

An angel holding the Veil of Veronica, one of the items in the collection of the Arma Christi ("weapons of Christ"), or the Instruments of the Passion. The arms are symbolic in the heraldic sense, or also as weapons used by Christ in order to achieve his conquest over Satan.

The Veil of Veronica, or Sudarium (Latin for sweat-cloth), is a Christian relic consisting of a piece of cloth said to bear an image of the Holy Face of Jesus produced by other than human means (an acheiropoieton, "made without hand"). Various existing images have been claimed to be the original relic, as well as early copies of it; representations of it are also known as vernicles.

The story of the image's origin is related to the sixth Station of the Cross, wherein Saint Veronica, encountering Jesus along the Via Dolorosa to Calvary, wipes the blood and sweat from his face with her veil. According to some versions, St. Veronica later traveled to Rome to present the cloth to the Roman Emperor Tiberius and also cured him. On the folklore level the veil has been said to quench thirst, cure blindness, and even raise the dead.

This detail in the narrative of the Passion is not recorded in the canonical gospels and it is therefore possible to examine the very name of the saint in order to also understand the evolution of the tradition associated with the relic. The name “Veronica” in Latin and Greek could colloquially mean “true image”, therefore in medieval times the Veil was associated with a truthful representation of Jesus of Nazareth, preceding the Shroud of Turin.

The closest written reference to Veronica is the miracle of Jesus healing the bleeding woman who touched the hem of his garment (Matthew 9:20–22; Mark 5:25–34; Luke 8:43–48), her name is later identified as Veronica by the apocryphal "Acts of Pilate" (4th-5th century CE). The link being made with the bearing of the cross in the Passion, and the miraculous appearance of the image, was made by Roger d'Argenteuil's Bible in French in the 13th century, and gained further popularity following the internationally popular work Meditations on the Life of Christ of about 1300. It is also at this point that other depictions of the image change to include a crown of thorns, blood, and the expression of a man in pain. The image became very common throughout Catholic Europe, forming part of the Arma Christi, and with the meeting of Jesus and Veronica becoming one of the Stations of the Cross.

Although the authenticity of such an item is of course found in the realm of tradition there was a physical image venerated as the Veil of Veronica and displayed in Rome from the 14th century on.
It has often been assumed that the Veil of Veronica was present in Vatican City’s Old St Peter's in the papacy of Pope John VII (705-8), as a chapel known as the Veronica chapel was built during his reign. In 1011 a scribe was identified as keeper of the cloth.

Following the records of two prominent pilgrims during the late 12th century who made two accounts making a direct reference to the Veil during their visit to Rome, in 1207, Pope Innocent III began making annual public parades of the Veil between St Peter's and the Santo Spirito Hospital, and in one of those parades, in 1300, Pope Boniface VIII was inspired to proclaim the first Jubilee. During this Jubilee the Veil became one of the "Mirabilia Urbis" ("Wonders of the City") for the pilgrims who visited Rome. It is possible that for the next two hundred years, the Veil, retained at Old St Peter's, was regarded as the most precious of all Christian relics.

After the Sack of Rome in 1527 following the capture of the city on 6 May by the troops of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, during the War of the League of Cognac, some writers recorded that the Veil had been destroyed while others testified to its continuing presence in the Vatican and one witness to the sacking stated that the Veronica was not found by the looters.

I photographed this angel at Albi Cathedral, built in the aftermath of the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars in Occitanie in order to establish the dominance of the Catholic Church in the town often believed to have been the source of a Christian movement the Church of Rome declared heretical. Pope Innocent III who launched the Crusade was also the pope who established the Cult of Veronica associated with the relic.

Pope Innocent III could have perpetuated the veneration of the Veil as part of religious reforms in order to renew the emphasize on the Eucharist at the center of Catholic life, or as a public relations move in order to enhance the status of Rome, the papacy and his pontificate. It is therefore interesting to consider the importance of this relic in the background of the tensions between the Cathars and the Catholic Church for a couple of reasons. One reason is that often it has been argued that the Cathars had an aversion to relics or also particularly to salvation through relics and the second that it has also been argued that they also refused the sacrament of the Eucharist, saying that it could not possibly be the body of Christ.

Notwithstanding the political background behind the veneration of relics, one cannot ignore that devotion to the Veil of Veronica took a life of its own independent of Pope Innocent III’s original goal, and expressed itself in medieval piety, personal devotion and of course the complex network of saints associated with the narrative of the Passion.

In the 19th century, Veronica was mentioned in the reported visions of Jesus by Marie of St Peter, a Carmelite nun who lived in Tours, France, and started the devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus. In 1844, Sister Marie reported that in a vision, she saw Veronica wiping away the spit and mud from the face of Jesus with her veil on the way to Calvary. She said that sacrilegious and blasphemous acts today are adding to the spit and mud that Veronica wiped away that day. See less
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