The Collaborative International Dictionary
Sudarium \Su*da"ri*um\, n. [L., a handkerchief.] (Eccl.) The handkerchief upon which the Savior is said to have impressed his own portrait miraculously, when wiping his face with it, as he passed to the crucifixion.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"napkin for wiping the face," especially the cloth of St. Veronica, on which an image of Christ's face was believed to be imprinted, c.1600, from Latin sudare "to sweat," from sudor "sweat" (see sweat (n.)). Earlier in nativized form sudary (mid-14c.).
Wikipedia
A sudarium (Latin) was a "sweat cloth", used for wiping the face clean. Small cloths of various sorts, for which sudarium is a general term, played a role in Ancient Roman formal manners and court ceremonial, and many such uses transferred to Christian liturgical usage and art. Different Greek terms are used in the Eastern Orthodox churches, but in the Roman Catholic and other Western churches, the term sudarium has been used for several textile objects:
- The maniple, a cloth of fine quality to wipe away perspiration, or an ornamental handkerchief which was seldom put into actual use, but was generally carried in the hand as an ornament as was commonly done by people of rank in ordinary life, now formalized as a vestment.
- The predecessor of the humeral veil
- The predecessor of the vimpa, a veil or shawl worn over the shoulders of servers who carry the mitre and crosier in liturgical functions when they are not being used by the bishop
- The cloth suspended from the crozier at the place where the bishop would grasp it, still depicted in ecclesiastical heraldry and used by Cistercian abbots. Also called pannisellus
- The veil used by the subdeacon to hold the paten; a pall(a) or mappula, the forerunner of the chalice veil, the ends of which he threw over his right shoulder
Sudarium specifically refers to two relics of the Passion of Jesus, the Sudarium of Oviedo and the Veil of Veronica. Another sudarium is found in Altmünster, Germany, and was supposedly given to Saint Bilihildis; it is locally venerated since the 15th century.
The sudarium may be related to the Sudra (סודרא) mentioned in the Talmud.
Usage examples of "sudarium".
I had heard priests tell that the Pope at Rome kept among the treasured relics of the Church a sudarium, a cloth which had been used to wipe the Holy Brow of Jesus Christ.
I also had heard a distinguished physician contest the priestly claim that it was the Holy Sweat which made the sudarium impervious to destruction.
The concern which owned the Sudaria and its sister vessels was not renowned for its charity and kindness.