A.D. 944
Edessa was in flames. The cries of its people rose above the crash of burning timbers and the sounds of battle as the emperor's army began to engulf the city.
Why had God abandoned them?
The old bishop rose unsteadily to his feet as the towering commander of the emir's forces entered the chapel, his battle-weary face creased with regret. The Muslim defenders of the city had fought fiercely on the Christians' behalf, dying by the hundreds to preserve for Edessa the Mandylion of the great prophet Jesus, may Allah protect him.
But now there was no choice. The Mandylion must be surrendered. A great cry rose from the throng of Christians filling the church as the bishop moved forward to the altar and removed the precious cloth from the simple casket in which it had rested.
Then, with the elders of his community clustered around him, he made his way with halting steps to the waiting soldier and gave the carefully folded cloth over to him. They fell to their knees as the shroud of Jesus was taken from them, to begin its long journey from its ordained place in Edessa into the hands of the Emperor of Byzantium. They had broken their oath, the oath their forebears had died to uphold.
These men-descendants of the scribe Timeaus, the giant Obodas, Izaz the nephew of Josar, John the Alexandrine, and so many Christians who had sacrificed their lives for the Holy Shroud-would recover it, and if they did not, then their own children, and their children's children after them, if need be, would not rest until that mission had been accomplished.
They swore this before God, before the imposing wooden cross that hung above the altar, before the painting of the Blessed Mother, before the Sacred Scriptures.