Pope Benedict XVI has prayed in front of the Shroud of Turin, believed by many to be Christ's burial cloth.
The visit to the holy relic provides a respite
for the Pope
He stopped short of actually declaring it the linen cloth used to cover the body of Jesus Christ.
But the pontiff said the relic had "wrapped the remains of a crucified man in full correspondence with what the Gospel tells us of Jesus".
After praying for four minutes, the Pope said the relic should be seen as a photographic document of the "darkest mystery of faith".
The cloth, 14ft by 3.5ft, has gone on public display for the first time since the 2000 Millennium celebrations and subsequent restoration.
Kept in a bulletproof, climate-controlled case in Turin's cathedral, it has drawn nearly two million requests from pilgrims and tourists eager to spend a few minutes viewing it.
The Shroud bears the faint image of a crucified man, stained by blood seeping from wounds in his hands and feet.
Pope Benedict described the cloth as an icon written in the blood of a man who was "whipped, crowned with thorns, crucified and injured".
"Each trace of blood speaks of love and life," he said.
The visit to the holy relic provides a respite for the Pope from dealing with the clerical sex abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church.
Experts say carbon-dating dates the linen to
the 13th or 14th Century
He has also met with five Vatican investigators who reported on an eight-month inquiry into the discredited order Legionaries of Christ, after revelations that its founder sexually abused seminarians and fathered at least one child.
But the visit to Turin is not without controversy. The Vatican, which owns the Turin Shroud, has tiptoed around the issue, calling it a powerful symbol of Christ's suffering while making no claim to its authenticity.
A Vatican researcher said last year that faint writing on the linen, which she studied through computer-enhanced images, proves the cloth was used to wrap Jesus' body after his crucifixion.
But experts stand by carbon-dating of scraps of the cloth that determine the linen was made in the 13th or 14th Century in a medieval forgery.
When Pope John Paul II visited the Shroud during a 1998 public display, he said its mystery forces questions about faith and science and whether it really was Christ's burial shroud.
But he said the church had "no specific competence to pronounce on these questions" and urged continuous study.
Monsignor Giuseppe Ghiberti, president of the Turin archdiocese's commission on the Shroud, has said the Vatican might consider a new round of scientific tests after the public display ends on May 23.
The Shroud was bequeathed to the Pope by former King Umberto II of Italy, a member of the House of Savoy, upon his death in 1983.