Mandylion
name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 often Mandylion: the Image of Edessa, a holy relic consisting of a piece of cloth upon which an image of the face of Jesus Christ had been miraculously imprinted without human intervention (that is, an acheiropoieton); an artistic depiction of this relic. countable, uncountable
"The tradition of the sacred image is related to established prototypes […] handed down in Christian art, the most important [of which] is the acheiropoietos ("not made by human hands") image of the Christ on the Mandilion. It is said that the Christ gave His image, imprinted on a piece of fabric, to the messengers of the King of Edessa, Abgar, who had asked Him for His portrait. The Mandilion had been preserved at Constantinople until it disappeared when the town was pillaged by the Latin Crusaders. A copy of the Mandilion is preserved in the cathedral of Laon."
- 1 Alternative letter-case form of mandylion. alt-of
Example
More examples"The tradition of the sacred image is related to established prototypes […] handed down in Christian art, the most important [of which] is the acheiropoietos ("not made by human hands") image of the Christ on the Mandilion. It is said that the Christ gave His image, imprinted on a piece of fabric, to the messengers of the King of Edessa, Abgar, who had asked Him for His portrait. The Mandilion had been preserved at Constantinople until it disappeared when the town was pillaged by the Latin Crusaders. A copy of the Mandilion is preserved in the cathedral of Laon."
Etymology
From Byzantine Greek μανδύλιον (mandúlion), μανδίλιον (mandílion), μαντίλιον (mantílion), or μανδήλη (mandḗlē, “cloth, hand towel, handkerchief, tablecloth”) (the last word dating to the 5th century), especially in the term τὸ ἄγιον μανδήλιον (tò ágion mandḗlion, “the holy towel”); from Latin mantēlium, a variation of mantēle or mantēlum (“hand towel, napkin”) (probably misconstructed as a singular form from the plural mantēlia); probably from manus (“hand”) + tergō (“to rub, wipe, wipe off, clean, cleanse”). Probably cognate with Umbrian mantrahklu.
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.