Ładzina Wanda (1880–1966)

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Krzysztof Pilarczyk
Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland

https://doi.org/10.12797/9788381388368.IV.13

Sanitary instructor, Member of Parliament in prewar Poland (1922–1927), social and political activist. At the end of March 1939 she published a treatise of over seventy pages entitled Ziemska postać umęczonego Chrystusa według Całunu Turyńskiego [English: The Earthly Figure of the Tormented Christ According to the Shroud of Turin], with the imprimatur of the Warsaw Metropolitan Curia and a dedication by Cardinal Maurilio Fossati, Archbishop of Turin: I give my blessing to the Esteemed Lady Wanda Ładzina for her fruitful apostolic work in spreading the veneration of the Holy Shroud among the noble Polish Nation. She signed the booklet as the correspondent for Poland of the association Cultores Sanctae Sindonis (Venerators of the Holy Shroud).

It was directly inspired by a Parisian exhibition in 1937, where a photograph of the Shroud taken by →Giuseppe Enrie was exhibited in the Vatican pavilion. It aroused tremendous interest and triggered the need for viewers to venerate Jesus. The author, aware of the fact that her work only imitates the publications of Rudolf W. Hynek and →Stanisław Karwowski and refers to the studies of Paul Vignon and Pierre Barbet (Les Cinq plaies du Christ, étude anatomique et expérimentale, Paris 1935), set herself as her most important task popularising the Shroud of Turin in Poland and among the Polish community as a witness to the faith—the “fifth gospel” and a relic equal to the Cross of Christ. This was also the aim of the numerous lectures she gave in Poland and abroad.

References

Dłużewska-Kańska Z., Ładzina ze Szczuków Wanda Władysława Józefa (1880-1966), [in:] Polski słownik biograficzny, Kraków [i in.], Vol. 18, 1973, pp. 188–189.

Pilarczyk K., Polscy syndonolodzy. Z dziejów badań Całunu Turyńskiego i ich popularyzacji, “Collectanea Theologica” 2018, Vol. 88, No. 2, pp. 23–24, https://doi.org/10.21697/ct.2018.88.2.02.

Source of Image

Polish National Digital Archive, ref. 3/1/0/2/602, https://www.szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl/jednostka/-/jednostka/5964907 (public domain)

Krzysztof Pilarczyk

Staff member at the Institute of Religious Studies of the Jagiellonian University, head of the Center of the History of Christian-Jewish Relations, associate at the Polish Syndonological Centre in Krakow. His interests focus on the history of Judaism, biblical and apocryphal literature, the origins of Christianity, interreligious dialogue, sindonology, Jewish book culture and religious tourism (Middle East). He publishes his scholarly activity on his website. Author of more than 300 scientific publications.

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