A photograph of the icon shows the thin face of a bearded man with large eyes, sunken nose and face on a red background surrounded with a yellow circle – the classic image of St Paul.
Pretty amazing. That combined with the earliest known icon and image of St. Paul (pictured here) all on the feasts of Sts Peter and Paul. Deo gratias!
Entire story here, bits below.
Pope Benedict XVI said scientific tests confirmed shards found in the underground chamber at the church of St Paul’s-Outside-the-Walls in Rome were from the apostle.
Saint Paul was said to have been buried with Saint Peter in a catacomb on the Via Appia, one of the Roman roads which leads out of the city, before being moved to a basilica which was erected in his honour.
For centuries it was believed that his remains were buried beneath the basilica’s main altar, which was covered with a slab of marble inscribed in Latin with the words Paulo Apostolo Mart – “Paul, apostle and martyr”.
The theory gained credence in 2006, when Vatican archeologists discovered a white marble sarcophagus hidden beneath the floor of the basilica – the largest in Rome after St Peter’s at the Vatican – after four years of excavations.
Pope Benedict XVI announced the findings during a service at the basilica, as Rome prepared to celebrate the Feasts of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.
“This seems to confirm the unanimous and undisputed tradition that these are the mortal remains of the Apostle Paul,” he said.
He said experts had drilled a tiny hole in the sarcophagus, which has remained closed for nearly two millennia, to allow inspection of its interior.
Inside they found “traces of a precious linen cloth, purple in colour, laminated with pure gold, and a blue coloured textile with filaments of linen,” Benedict said.
“It also revealed the presence of grains of red incense and traces of protein and limestone. There were also tiny fragments of bone, which, when subjected to Carbon 14 tests by experts, turned out to belong to someone who lived in the first or second century.”
St. Paul was beheaded in Rome around AD 65, on the orders of Emperor Nero, during the persecution of early Christians.
The discovery of the bone fragments came shortly after the Vatican announced archaeologists had discovered what they believe is the oldest image in existence of Saint Paul, dating from the late 4th century, on the walls of catacomb beneath Rome.
The Vatican’s newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, published a picture of a frescoed image of a man with piercing eyes, a pointed black beard and a furrowed forehead, against a red background, inside a bright yellow halo. Lasers were used to remove centuries of dirt from the oval portrait.
