The Shroud of Turin, the linen that is believed to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ, will be shown on Italian state TV for the first time in decades on Easter Sunday.
The Vatican said the viewing of the cloth is the parting gift of pope emertius Benedict XVI, who resigned last month.
“It will be a message of intense spiritual scope, charged with positivity, which will help hope never to be lost,” Cesare Nosiglia, the archbishop of Turin, told The Guardian.
The last time the shroud was shown on TV was in 1973, as ordered by Pope Paul VI.
The 14-foot-long piece of cloth appears to bear the imprint of a man’s body and a beaded man’s face. The body appears to have some wounds that match those of what Jesus suffered on the cross, according to the Bible’s description.
However, there has been dispute as to the authenticity of the cloth. Some scholars believe the Shroud of Turn dates back the Middle Ages, according to CNN.
The Roman Catholic Church does not say if the shroud was used as the burial cloth of Jesus. The church, which keeps the relic in a bulletproof and climate controlled piece of glass in Turin Cathedral, keeps the shroud regardless of its authenticity to bolster Catholics’ faith.
A new study on Thursday said that the Shroud of Turin dates to ancient times, reported The Daily Telegraph.
Researchers with the University of Padua in Italy used infra-red light and spectroscopy to evaluate the fibers in the shroud. The determined that the age of the relic is between 300 BC and 400 AD.
