The great exhumation of Saint Charbel

Synthèse :

The burial of the hermit Charbel

Christmas 1898: an icy wind blows through the chapped cork oaks, their branches bending under the snow. The last stars have gone out. A single star, resting on four planks, makes its way through the trees of the hermitage of Saints Peter and Paul to the convent of Annaya below. Pallbearers wrapped up against the cold, crucifix and rosary in hand, chant the Syriac funeral service. They form a strange procession that finally enters the vaults of the monastery chapel to lay the body of the hermit Charbel, dressed in his religious habit, on a simple table. His face is left uncovered. It is 24 December 1898. The first office for the dead ends, the monks withdraw one by one and the convent falls back into silence.

The next day, the news spreads like wildfire. A silent crowd has gathered. Among them is Saba Tannousse Moussa, a simple young man, crippled from birth - a real burden to his family - who has come to the hermitage to ask the hermit for help as a last resort. On hearing of his death, Saba's mother, who is with him, decides, with a heavy heart, to turn back. But Saba insists. He crawls on the ground to reach and touch the body of the deceased, then this own chest and paralysed limbs. Suudenly, Saba Tannousse Moussa stands up: he has been healed on the spot! The stunned crowd spontaneously breaks into a song of thanksgiving.

The grave is ready: it is a simple hole lined with stones and covered with rammed earth, that adjoins the church on the hillside. Water infiltration is frequent and abundant. According to monastic tradition, the body is deposited inside without a coffin, wrapped in his religious habit with its face uncovered, laid on two planks resting on stones to isolate it from the muddy ground. The slab that closes the opening is then sealed with cement. "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mouth has spoken of what God has prepared for those who love him", Saint Paul said.

A strange halo of light

A few days after the burial, the farmers of Annaya become worried. Every evening, from a distance, they see an extraordinary light hovering over their hermit's tomb. They report the sightings to the Abbot, who temporises and tells them: "The next time you see this light, fire a rifle into the air to warn me. I'll come along to observe it". And everyone goes back to his business...

In April 1899, four months after the funeral, one evening around midnight, four men on horses, led by a Muslim governor, knock on the monastery door. They are looking for a dangerous criminal who must be in the area, as they have been told that a strange halo of light has been spotted near the monastery. The halo disappeared when they arrived. Suddenly, a shot rings out: the police and monks rush outside and see a strong light shining on the tomb. The governor asks them to "open it immediately". The Abbot refuses, so the governor has to wait for a written authorisation from the Maronite patriarch before unsealing the slab in his presence on 15 April 1899. Under oath, everyone has to testify to what they saw: "An intact body (despite the water and mud that partially cover it), a serene face, supple and flexible limbs, light red blood flowing from its side". It is then decided to change the funeral sheet, place him in a perfectly sealed coffin, and transport him to a secret location, a repository at the top of the church wall, accessible by an internal staircase, in order to keep him away from the sometimes excessive devotion of the faithful.

The mystery of St Charbel's body, both dead and alive

A month later, it is found that the exudation has reached the bottom of the stairs and is flowing into the church. The community is then forced to let the coffin dry in the open air, before placing it in a small parlor at the entrance to the monastery in 1901: it stands upright in a glass cupboard to satisfy the demands of the faithful. Finally, in 1909, it is in a shrine donated by Dr Choukrallah that the body, looking "both dead and alive",lies in public for seventeen years, while the mysterious liquid continues to flow! For seventeen years, certified testimonies of miracles and obtained graces are sent to the monastery. The Lebanese Maronite Patriarchate then turns to Rome, asking His Holiness Pope Pius XI for authorisation to open a beatification process for three members of the Maronite Order: Nimatallah Kassab Al-Hardini, Father Charbel's spiritual master, the nun Rafka, and Father Charbel himself.

On 24 July 1927, the canonical investigation is officially opened, following a new exhumation and a medical report by Professor Jouffroy, from the French Faculty of Medicine in Beirut. The report is sealed in a metal tube placed at the saint's feet. It indicates that the effusion has continued, from a body that is still intact and supple, and recommends that Charbel's body be placed in a new cedar coffin, lined with a zinc coffin, which is placed in the monastery chapel, behind non-porous stones, grouted with cement. Pius XI then declares Father Charbel a venerable servant of God, ahead of his beatification.

On 25 February 1950, twenty-three years later, although the master mason has certified the watertightness of the partition, the pinkish seepage is once again observed at the foot of the wall. This time, the "great exhumation" is ordered by Pope Pius XII in the presence of the Superior General of the Lebanese Maronite Order, ecclesiastical authorities, the Director of the Lebanese Government Health Service, Dr Théophile Maroun, Professor of Pathological Anatomy at the French Faculty of Medicine in Beirut, and various civil and military authorities.

When the coffin is opened, the monk's body is found to be immersed in 8 centimetres of a pinkish liquid (composed of blood and sweat) that tests reveal is "physiological in nature". The vestments and alb are soaked in this liquid, which has solidified and coagulated in places. The venerable man's face and hands, which had been covered with a veil in 1927, are intact and, like the Shroud of Turin, have left their imprint on the linen. The body has retained all its suppleness and the arms and legs can be bent. Scientific witnesses also speak of the appearance of an "undead body"!

The many miracles of Saint Charbel

On 4 August 1950, for the first time and with the authorisation of Pope Pius XII, the body of the "Venerable" is laid in state in a glass coffin, during an official religious ceremony that draws huge crowds of Christians and Muslims, not only from Lebanon but from all over the Near and Middle East. Presided over by the Maronite patriarch, the ceremony brings together representatives of the political parties, civilian and military authorities, and the various patriarchs of the Eastern Churches.

In the middle of the gathered and fervent crowd, between his father and mother, stands a young child of four, who contemplates the venerable monk asleep behind the glass of his coffin. It's an image he will never forget, and one that will stay with him for the rest of his life, as he has become the official archivist of the saint's miracles around the world. Father Luis Matar - the person best informed about the miracles performed by Saint Charbel - is not afraid to say: "Everything you read in the biographies of the saints is far inferior to what, with my own eyes, I have seen Father Charbel perform since I myself took my vows in the Maronite Order."

It is true that from the time of the "great exhumation" of 1950 onwards, miracles have indeed multiplied in Annaya and elsewhere. Some of them are so striking that the religious authorities set up registers to keep an official account. Some miracle are physical, other spiritual. At the same time the investigation initiated in 1927 is resumed. After its public display in August 1950, the body is once again placed in a tomb and walled up. The experts are intent on pointing out that at the time of his death, Father Charbel weighed barely 45 kg, and that 84 kg of exudates and perspiration has been collected since 1898!

The Vatican retains two cures, assessed and authenticated by reliable medical authorities:

1. The instantaneous, complete and definitive healing, in front of Father Charbel's tomb, of Sister Marie-Abel Kamari (Congregation of the Holy Heart), who had been suffering for fourteen years from a generalized chronic ulceration of the skin;
2. Iskandar Obeid, who had been blind in his left eye since 1935 due to a torn retina, was completely and definitively cured after a visit to Annaya and a prayer before the tomb of the Venerable.

Fifteen years later, on 5 December 1965, Pope Paul VI pronounced the beatification in St Peter's Basilica in Rome - in the presence of many of the fathers present at the Second Vatican Council, which the Holy Father would close three days later, on 8 December 1965, the day of the Immaculate Conception - of the man whose veneration of the Virgin had illuminated his entire life. Blessed Charbel was canonised on 9 October 1977 in St Peter's Basilica in Rome by Pope Paul VI, after twelve years of a new process that included, among the many miracles attested, the instantaneous, complete and definitive cure, in December 1966, of Maroun Assaf Awad, in front of the tomb of the Blessed, from incurable throat cancer.

The great devotion to the saint of Lebanon

How can we explain the fervour that still surrounds this great saint today, if not the relationship of love and faith that intimately bound this monk-priest to the Virgin Mary and to Christ, in a rejection of all earthly vanities? His penitential lifestyle has put him at the centre of the lives of millions of believers around the world, on five continents and in over one hundred and thirty-three countries, who ask for his intercession every day. They are Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Druze, Alawites and even atheists. The monastery receives thousands of letters, in every language, asking for prayers or relics of the saint, or attesting to healings and graces received.

Most of the recipients of St Charbel's miracles have one thing in common: they have seen this strange monk-priest in a dream or somehow "met" him. Some of them didn't even know him, but his appearance is so unique that even a child could describe him. However, from the time of his death until 1950, the date of the "great exhumation", no photograph of the holy man existed. Until one day, on 8 May 1950, the feast of St John in the Maronite calendar, a bus transporting about forty monks arrived in Annaya around midday. After the usual pilgrimage to the monastery, the visitors made their way to the hermitage under the guidance of Father Pierre Chalhoub, who had a Leica camera, and Brother Elias Nouhra, who had a Kodak camera. These took some photos of the visitors in front of the hermitage entrance.

When the photos were developed, they were in for a surprise: nobody recognised a foreign silhouette in the middle of the group. They asked the Abbot General of the Maronites for the name of the person who, unbeknownst to everyone, always appears strangely in the photographs. The older fathers, who had known Father Charbel Makhlouf when he was alive and who included some of Father Charbel's relatives, immediately recognised him. From then on, the entire Order of Maronite monks was certain that it is the real portrait of the late Servant of God. A photograph of it is kept at the Annaya monastery and, according to Father Luis Matar, it serves as a model for all the reproductions. It is the same person described by the beneficiaries of his miracles, with his hood pulled down over his downcast eyes and a long white beard!

The East, which was the cradle of monasticism, was also the cradle of eremitism oriented towards mysticism and contemplation. Charbel Makhlouf, canonised according to the rules in force in the Catholic Church, is a symbol of the unity between East and West. We owe the Christians of the Lebanese diaspora the privilege of knowing the great lover of God, mystic, and miracle-worker Saint Charbel.

Aller plus loin :

Love is a Radiant Light: The Life & Words of Saint Charbel by Saint Charbel (Author), Hanna Skandar (Author), Angelico Press (February 15, 2019)

En savoir plus :

• Aleteia article "How St. Charbel attracts pilgrims across the world"

• Numerous interviews with Father Luis Matar, archivist of Saint Charbel's miracles from 2006 to 2023 in Annaya (Lebanon).
• The 1000 Reasons to Believe article : "The 29 349 miracles of Saint Charbel Maklouf ".