The Shroud of Turin's 
rescue from the devastating 
blaze at San Giovanni has 
been described as "a miracle." 
 

Shroud of Turin Survives Suspicious Fire

by D. Trull
Enigma Editor
dtrull@parascope.com

On April 11, 1997, one of the most famous and controversial religious artifacts in the world was nearly lost forever. A fire in downtown Turin, Italy, tore through the San Giovanni Renaissance cathedral, which has served as home for the legendary Shroud of Turin since 1578. A crowd of thousands gathered to witness the devastating blaze, many of them weeping. It seemed certain that fire would claim the ancient linen widely believed to have wrapped Christ's body after the Crucifixion.

But incredibly, firefighters were able to rescue the Shroud from the flames without so much as a singe. Now the question remains: was the fire accidental, or was it the latest in a long history of plots to destroy the cherished burial cloth?

Fireman Mario Trematore is responsible for saving the Shroud, having risked his life to charge through the 15th century cathedral's interior as the fire raged. He had to reach the black marble chapel of the Holy Shroud at the back of San Giovanni, where the cloth has long been enshrined inside a large reliquary made of silver and glass. Tight security measures meant to protect the icon now became a severe obstacle, as Trematore had to smash through eight layers of bulletproof glass with a sledgehammer to reach the Shroud's container. His fellow firefighters directed hoses at the shrine to keep temperatures down as Trematore pounded against the glass for fifteen minutes.

Bleeding profusely from his efforts, Trematore made his way out of the burning structure with the four-foot reliquary across his shoulders. The crowd cheered his heroism with great relief.

"It was God who gave me the strength to break that glass," Trematore said as he was taken away for medical attention. "The force was in the cloth."

Afterwards Trematore was officially proclaimed Italy's hero. The Vatican also announced that it would bestow an award on the firefighter. Even though the Roman Catholic Church has never recognized the cloth as a true holy relic, the Vatican owns the Shroud of Turin and treats it with reverence.

"A miracle," Pope John Paul II commented of the Shroud's rescue. "A holy icon venerated by so many over the centuries has again been saved from the flames."
 

As the Pope suggests, fire has threatened the Shroud several times before. It survived a close call with incineration sometime prior to 1516, and later sustained substantial fire damage in 1532. This incident has become a key factor in the ongoing debate over the Shroud's true age. Carbon testing in 1988 indicated that the cloth dated back no further than the 14th century, although many argue the 1532 fire altered the cloth's chemical composition enough to throw those test results off by a wide margin.

More recently, there have been numerous failed attempts to torch San Giovanni and its most prized artifact in the 1970s and '80s. These attacks have been staged by assorted religious extremists, and most of them have taken place on a Friday night, echoing the date that Christ was crucified and entombed.

Although the official word from investigating authorities is that the fire was accidental -- most likely caused by a short circuit in the cathedral's electrical wiring -- there are those who think otherwise. Shroud scholar Vittorio Messori is convinced this was no accident.

"There is no other object which attracts so much love and so much hate," Messori said. "It has everything -- Jesus, the Templars who brought it to Europe, science... an ideal Internet conspiracy subject. In fact the Internet is full of the sick fantasies of people who want to destroy the Shroud."

Internet-bashing aside, there certainly is abundant circumstantial evidence that the fire was caused by more than bad wiring. Turin's fire brigade received an anonymous phone call warning of a "fire in the city" half and hour before the San Giovanni blaze. It occurred on a Friday night, following the pattern set by religiously-motivated terrorists. Afterwards, an empty can of gasoline was discovered in the gardens of the adjacent Royal Palace. The fire interrupted a dignitary-filled banquet being held there by Gianni Agnelli, the "uncrowned King of Italy." In attendance were Italian Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.

One theory is that a group of Italian anarchists known as the autonomi may be responsible for the fire, as a statement against Annan and the U.N. as well as the Shroud of Turin. The autonomi have protested Annan's approval of the Italian-led intervention in Albania, the first major mission undertaken by the Italy's military since World War II. Autonomi members have demonstrated on the grounds of the San Giovanni cathedral and the Royal Palace on numerous occasions, including the Friday one week before the fire.

To add one further element of strangeness to the mix, it has been reported that because of restoration work that was underway, all the fire alarms in the cathedral had been "temporarily turned off." The same was true of the fire alarms in Venice's La Fenice opera house, which was consumed by flames last year in what turned out to be Mafia-related arson. It seems an unusually egregious lapse in security for the San Giovanni cathedral's staff, which has been known for its stringent protectiveness for the Shroud of Turin's welfare.

"A black day for Italy," art historian Federico Zeri said of the near loss of the Shroud of Turin. "An immense disaster, the result of sheer stupidity, yet no one is ever fired for incompetence. I sometimes think Italy deserves such tragedies... how big a shock do we need before we do something?"

Although the Shroud escaped the fire intact, San Giovanni cathedral will require some $35 million in repairs. The Italian government has already designated $7.1 million for initial restoration work. There was initially speculation that the Shroud, which is currently being held in a secret location, would probably never return to its former home. But the fire has made no changes in plans to display the Shroud from April 18 to June 14, 1998 in the main section of San Giovanni cathedral, which was less badly damaged in the incident. This will mark the first open exhibition of the Shroud of Turin since 1978. It is scheduled to go on display again in the year 2000, to celebrate the beginning of Christianity's third millennium.
 

Sources: Associated Press; Electronic Telegraph; The Times (London); 
Shroud of Turin web site   http://www.shroud.com/fire.htm

(c) Copyright 1997 ParaScope, Inc.