Veil of Veronica
sweat cloth relic of St. Veronica
The Veil of Veronica, or Sudarium (Latin for sweat-cloth), also known as the Vernicle, the Veronica and the Holy Face, is a Christian relic consisting of a piece of cloth said to bear an image of the Holy Face of Jesus produced by miraculous means (an acheiropoieton). Various existing images have been claimed to be the original relic or an early copy of it; representations of it are also known as vernicles.
The story of the image's origin is related to the sixth Station of the Cross, wherein Saint Veronica, encountering Jesus along the Via Dolorosa to Calvary, wipes the blood and sweat from his face with her veil. According to some versions, St. Veronica later traveled to Rome to present the cloth to the Roman Emperor Tiberius. The veil has been said to quench thirst, cure blindness, and even raise the dead.
The first written account of the story is from the Middle Ages, and during the 14th century, the veil became a central icon in the Western Christian Church. In the words of art historian Neil Macgregor, "From [the 14th Century] on, wherever the Roman Church went, the Veronica would go with it." The act of Saint Veronica wiping the face of Jesus with her veil is celebrated in the sixth Station of the Cross in many Catholic, Evangelical-Lutheran and Anglican churches.
Evolution of the story
There is no reference to the story of Veronica and her veil in the canonical Gospels. The closest written reference is the miracle of Jesus healing the bleeding woman by touching the hem of Jesus' garment; her name is later identified as Veronica by the apocryphal "Acts of Pilate".
“Veil of Veronica” enters the record as sweat cloth relic of St. Veronica. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Veil, Veronica and sweat can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Veil of Veronica” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Veil, Veronica and sweat provides the most credible route into that argument.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q608632. The Library of Congress control number is sh90002846. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Veil of Veronica” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.