15 August 944

Events:

• The procession with the Mandylion enters Constantinople.
• A closed show is held in the sacristy of the Church of Our Lady in Blachernae, attended by the future Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus and the sons of the reigning Emperor Romanus, Stephanus and Constantine. They describe the face of Christ on the Mandylion as 'very blurred.’ That same night, the Mandylion is taken by galley to the Boukoleon Palace and placed in the Imperial Chapel of the Pharos.

Comment:

The contemporary source De imagine edessena describes the image as being formed by a 'moist secretion, without the use of paint or the art of painting’ and as 'bearing no trace of earthly pigments.’