NEWS
 
  • Diana FULBRIGHTDiana Joan Andry Fulbright, 75 years old, passed away on November 24, 2017.  Diana served as Director of Research at the Shroud of Turin Center, Richmond, Virginia, since its inception in 1997.  She had investigated the Turin Shroud since 1981, when she met Vernon Miller, Official Photographer of the Shroud for the STURP research team, at the Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara.  She held degrees from the University of California and did her doctoral work at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  Diana taught Religious Studies and related languages at the University of Iowa, the University of California and at the Benedictine Monastery in Richmond.  She was a founding member of the Shroud of Turin Education and Research Association and had been an active member of its Board of Directors.  Diana had lectured on the Shroud of Turin at professional conferences in Paris, Orvieto, Italy, Jerusalem, Dallas, St. Louis and to various church groups and civic organizations of the greater Richmond area and elsewhere (Richmond Times Dispatch, November 30, 2017)

  • On August 10, 2018, the exceptional “exhibition” of the Shroud in the Cathedral

Ostensione Giovani 2018 Press ConferenceOn the occasion of the Pilgrimage of the youth of Piedmont and Valle D'Aosta towards Rome, on the eve of the meeting with the Pope, on August 11 and 12, and only a few months before the Synod of Bishops on Youth, on August 10 the Shroud will be exhibited in the place where it is located, that is, in the chapel under the royal gallery of the Cathedral of Turin: thousands of young people will be able to approach it and contemplate it. Until then, the reflection on the Shroud will mark the path of approaching this appointment with the motto “Love shall leave the sign” (Maria Teresa Martinengo, La Stampa, November 21, 2017)

 

  • A new congress about the Shroud was held in Pasco (USA) from July 19th to 22nd. All information regarding the congress is available on the website: http://www.shroudresearch.net/conference-2017/ (Emanuela Marinelli - October 23, 2017)

  • Alan D. WHANGERAlan D. Whanger, 87 years old, died on October 21, 2017. Alan graduated in 1956 from the Duke University School of Medicine. Following an internship and residency in General Surgery in Ohio, and a diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in London, he served as a medical missionary with the United Methodist Church from 1961-1965 at a rural hospital in the country that is now Zimbabwe. Upon his return to the United States, he did a residency in psychiatry at Duke from 1965-1968, followed by a fellowship in geropsychiatry from 1968-1970. He remained on the Duke faculty as a professor of psychiatry until his retirement in 1993. Retirement brought Alan the opportunity to turn his considerable energies full-time to what had been a part-time interest since 1977: the Shroud of Turin. A casual purchase of a book with an intriguing photograph on the cover - The Sacred Shroud, by Thomas Humber - led to many years of intense research, uncovering evidence in support of the authenticity of the Shroud as the burial cloth of Jesus, carrying indications not only of his death but of his Resurrection. In pursuit of this research, Alan both applied his existing expertise in photography and image analysis, and acquired new knowledge in areas as diverse as Byzantine iconography, Middle Eastern botany, ancient coins, and Jewish burial customs (Life Legacy, October 22, 2017)

  • A great Shroud scholar has gone back to the Father's House. Mario Moroni passed away yesterday at 84  years of age and he was one of the great Shroud scholars. He was a scholar, but also a great person. The books he used to prepare the "lessons" he held in front of the students of the schools in Brianza have remained on his desk. He lived in Robbiate, where also were the headquarters of the group of scholars who, together with him, had deepened the studies on the Sacred Cloth.Synopsized in the 22 panels of the traveling exhibit with which he illustrated the detailed studies, such as the simulation of the 1532 Chambéry fire, and the results obtained. His interest towards the Shroud dated back to the 1978 Exhibition. Besides the specialized library, with 500 books, he had hundreds of publications and dozens of folders with the results of the experiments carried out in 35 years. He also wrote books. The last one, "Lungo le strade della Sindone", was written in collaboration with Francesco Barbesino. (www.merateonline.it/ - April 3, 2017)

  • Lennox Manton A tribute in honour of his longstanding services to the British Society for the Turin Shroud.

Amongst Lennox's many interests was the Turin Shroud, the so controversial cloth that allegedly wrapped Jesus' dead body after his crucifixion.  Lennox joined the British Society for the Turin Shroud not long after its foundation in the late 1970s, at a time when media interest in the topic was particularly intense. Thereafter he was a regular attendee whenever the Society hosted lectures in London, in later years making special train journeys from Stirling for this purpose.  Lennox also pursued his own original researches into the subject, alongside furthering one of his other research passions, the travels of St. Paul.   Both of these lines of research took him to Turkey, where in the case of the Shroud he pioneered exploration of the rock-cut churches of Cappadocia, very ably photographing - amongst much else - their often badly damaged but Shroud-inspired depictions of the Christ Pantocrator, also hitherto little-known depictions of the Image of Edessa, the Eastern Orthodox Church's fabled  'lost' cloth imprinted with Christ's image, controversially identified with the  Shroud.

In April 1994 Lennox gave a very memorable illustrated  lecture on  these researches to a well-attended meeting of the British Society for the Turin Shroud held at the New Cavendish Club in London.  Later the same year his monograph of the same findings was published from Australia by Australian promoter of Shroud studies Rex Morgan, MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire). Although my wife Judith and I emigrated to Australia the following year (quite independently of the  Rex Morgan connection!), Lennox regularly kept in touch with us throughout the two decades since.  Only in the most recent years did what had been emails from him lapse back to conventional  postal communications, at which point  Lennox graphically described his and Ruth's herculean efforts trying to stay as independent as possible despite their nonagenarian vintage!

Lennox was blessed with a diversity and universality of interests, amongst these the medical science that was necessary for his dental profession and the art and history knowledge that was necessary for his Capadocian rock paintings studies, a universality that is sadly becoming all too rare in today's so specialist  and  so communications-obsessed twenty-first century world.  When carbon dating tests carried out on the Turin Shroud in 1988 were widely broadcast as 'proving' the cloth to be a medieval fake Lennox, unlike so many others,  most admirably held steadfast to his own  longstanding 'authentic' opinion,  for me personally  a most valued source of support and reassurance at a very difficult time. Throughout the decades that I have known Lennox I have felt privileged by his friendship.  He invariably presented as a paragon of integrity, wide knowledge, quiet faith, gentle humour and sound sense.  He richly deserved the long and  full life that he enjoyed.  Even though I mourn the death of yet another old friend, I can only feel grateful to have known him, and to have learned that he died with dignity and peace on the 14th of February 2017. (Ian Wilson – February 24, 2017)


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