The operation of the patches removal, begun last June 20 by the group coordinated by the Swiss textile expert Mechtild Flury-Lemberg, became necessary to eliminate the tension between the cloth textures, in accordance with the 1998 previous study, which had led to the Shroud unrolling solution..  The Commission for the conservation, in fact, had established to guard the sheet extended instead of rolled up, just in order to avoid  the folds damaging the sacred linen.

Until last July 22, the group of scholars worked on the Shroud, unravelling the patient and accurate darn, made by the French Clare nuns, who five centuries ago saved the cloth after the fire that on  December 4, 1532 had burnt it in several areas. The Turinese daily paper says, for the Shroud restoration, the Vatican Secretariat of State has given its assent to the "quick procedure in virtue of the absolute trust the Cardinal Severino Poletto enjoys."  In fact, the archbishop of Turin has guarded the sacred cloth since 1578, that is, since when the Duke Emanuele Filiberto carried it to this town.

In the meantime, the archbishop of Turin has declared that "in mid-September the intervention will be made known and documented photographically."  However, a new exhibition, after the Jubilee year one, will not be possible before 2025 and, in that moment, the Shroud will show a different image, without the patches which covered its burns.
      (Rre/Pn/Adnkronos)

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