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By Gretchen Keiser
The Shroud of Turin photographic exhibit, which opened at
Peachtree Center mall last November for what was to be a three-month
exhibition, seems destined to stay in Atlanta.
Twice the scheduled closing of the exhibit has been extended. More
than 25,000 people have visited the exhibit, pausing to study the images of a
crucified man, on display next to a shopping area of glittering boutiques.
Father Kim Dreisbach, the director of the Atlanta Center for Continuing Study
of the Shroud of Turin, now says he is confident that the exhibit, which
contains more than 150 photographs, transparencies and replicas, will be kept
in the Atlanta area permanently. It is scheduled to stay at Peachtree Center
only through Easter Sunday and it is not known where a permanent display area
may be found.
But the exhibit has become a part of the fabric of life in the
heart of Atlanta’s hotel district, where its presence is advertised by
posters and the hotel system’s in-house television network. While the
majority of people to tour the exhibit are from Georgia, there has also been a
steady stream of conventioneers and out-of-town visitors. The exhibit’s
log records people from 44 states and 14 countries, many brought by friends in
the Atlanta area.
Originally scheduled to be exhibited in the Fox Theater’s
Egyptian Ballroom, those plans fell through at the last minute. The Peachtree
Center Management Co. donated some vacant store space formerly occupied by
Brendan’s Bookstore, in the lower mall area. It is an unusual location for
an exhibit concerning the authenticity of a linen burial cloth, which is
believed by many to be the shroud used to wrap the body of Jesus Christ. The
exhibit is primarily made up of photographs taken during a 1978 scientific
examination of the Shroud of Turin in Turin, Italy. The scientific study looked
at the authenticity of the cloth and attempted to determine the nature of the
image of a crucified man found upon the cloth, subjecting it to the rigors of
20th century analysis.
Father Dreisbach, the pastor of the Episcopal Church of the
Incarnation in southwest Atlanta, sees in the Shroud “a marvelous
evangelism to the rational, agnostic, skeptical mind.” The photographic
exhibit, placed in a commercial environment, is accessible to those who might
not enter a church, Father Dreisbach said. Some who come have been deeply
affected by the photographs and the information given by tour guides about the
Shroud, the suffering endured by the crucified man, and the scientific studies.
In a letter, one man said he left the exhibit “unwilling to
accept the authenticity of the things I had just heard and seen…” but
that he had gone home and read one of the contemporary books about the Shroud
and the scientific research. Now he has experienced a rebirth of his faith, he
said, and has returned to active life in his church. “Thank you and all
those involved with the production of this exhibit,” he wrote. “It
has, I am sure, saved this life.”
Another person commented that he visited the exhibit “during
a period of time when I had felt separated from Christ.” Afterward the
person said, “I think a long period of drought is over.”
Children have been especially affected, Father Dreisbach said,
sharing immediately in the suffering. But adults also have had strong
reactions, sometimes breaking into tears and sometimes fainting. Most often
people seem to have been distanced from the reality of suffering involved in
crucifixion, Father Dreisbach said, and to have had that broken down as they
walk through the exhibit.
The tours of the exhibit speak primarily of the history of the
Shroud and of the scientific analyses being done, closing with an invitation to
consider the faith implications. Father Dreisbach, who had led tours five and
six days a week since last June, said that people react in pain to the
suffering and with awe to the scientific research that is described to them.
But the life-changing effects come, he believes, from the power of the Shroud
itself.
“All this tour guide business really is anyway, is like a
shepherd at Bethlehem pointing at the cave,” he said. “The power is
the Shroud’s.”
(The exhibit will be open through Easter Sunday with some special
hours and events. Hours are from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday. On
Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, the exhibit will be open from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
The Fulton County Commission has also proclaimed March 27 as Shroud of Turin
Exhibition Day in the county. On Good Friday, in addition to the exhibit’s
normal hours, a corporate Stations of the Cross will be conducted on the Mall
at Peachtree Center from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m., to be followed by the showing of a
film on the Shroud of Turin called “The Silent Witness.”) |
