[ConservativeMind]

Luke was not a Mary idolator, was not a painter, nor was he going to fashion or make something in the image of Christ, nor would he have had paints and canvass that would have survived 2,000 years and have painted in a medieval form.

It's like the esteemed holy toenails of the Apostle John, which every other Catholic church in parts of the world may claim, except, John never had 2,000 toenails to have stolen from his grave, to be traded amongst a tribe of Catholic, to venerate.

Does that help?

[Dr. Sivana]

Luke was not a Mary idolator, was not a painter, nor was he going to fashion or make something in the image of Christ, nor would he have had paints and canvass that would have survived 2,000 years and have painted in a medieval form.

Making a painting of someone you know does not make you an idolator.
The image is directly on cedar wood not canvas (reputedly from a wood table in the household of the Holy Family).
There are plenty of historical references to the painting in the first millennium, when it spent a lot of time in Constantinople.

I am a Catholic, and never heard of the 2,000 holy toenails of St. John the Apostle. Not saying there aren't phonies out there, but that doesn't mean that every purported relic is a phony.