The Turin Shroud, said to be the burial cloth of Christ,was transferred to the sanctuary of Montevergine in Avellino, in the southern Campania region of Italy, in 1939 and was only transferred to Turin in 1946: officially this was to protect it from possible bombing, but ”the reason behind the move was because Hitler was “obsessed” with the sacred relic” said the current director of the library at the abbey, Father Andrea Cardin.

During the Second World War, the Vatican feared that Adolf Hitler wanted to steal it, so” The Shroud was moved in secret, on the precise orders of the Royal House of Savoy and the Vatican” Father Cardin continues.

“In 1943 when German troops searched the Montevergine church, the monks there pretended to be in deep prayer before the altar, inside which the relic was hidden. This was the only reason it wasn’t discovered.”