Why an Atheist Thinks the Shroud of Turin is the Real Deal

St. Leander

One possible explanation may have to do with St. Leander, a Benedictine monk and a bishop of Seville. Sometime between 579 and A.D. 582, shortly after the image bearing cloth had been “rediscovered” in Edessa, he visited Constantinople. Was the newly discovered cloth with an image the talk of the town? Edessa, at the time, was part of the Byzantine Empire, less than 200 miles away on a major trade route. Perhaps, on his return to the Iberian Peninsula, Leander influenced the composition of this one illation in the Mozarabic Rite. That is, of course, only speculation. But that there was communications between the East and the West is certain.