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

Alexios and Alexios

At the time, Alexios Angelos III was the emperor. He was the great-grandson of Alexios Komnenos who reportedly appealed for help from Robert of Flanders before the First Crusades. Alexios III had, with the help of the military, taken the throne from his brother, Isaac II, while Isaac was out of the city. When his brother returned he had him arrested, put out his eyes and threw him in prison.  

Isaac’s son, also named Alexios Angelos, fled the city and connected up with the crusaders claiming that he was the rightful heir and offering to pay the crusaders to help him. It was ostensibly for this reason that crusaders entered the harbor in 1203. Alexios III put up a brief resistance, then fled. The blind Isaac II briefly resumed the throne and welcomed his son back.

Someone took the tetradiplon shroud, the full length burial cloth with blood and images described by Gregory Referendius, Christ’s burial shroud, once the Image of Edessa. right when he said, “[No one knows - neither Greek nor Frank - what became of that shroud when the city was taken,” wrote Robert de Clari.