-
 Diana 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 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)
-
 Alan 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)
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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