The miracle of liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius

Since 431, the blood of the Neapolitan martyr Saint Januarius (272 - 305), piously collected by Eusebia, his former nurse, and preserved in two glass vials in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption in Naples, has inexplicably liquefied three times a year during liturgical ceremonies attended by thousands of people, all eyewitnesses to the occurences.

Antoine Jean-Baptiste Thomas, The procession of the relics of Saint Janvier in 1822, during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, 1822, Château de Versailles / © CC0/wikimedia

Les raisons d'y croire :

Since 1500 (this date is not that of the building of the Neapolitan cathedral, which began in 1290, but of its reconstruction after the collapse of 1456), around 1,000 people have attended each of the three annual ceremonies, making a total of 3,000 witnesses a year. If we multiply this figure by the number of years that have passed since then, we arrive at a total of at least 1.5 million direct witnesses - a figure that necessarily increases if we include the years 1290-1500.

Sometimes liquefaction does not occur, even though the Cardinal Archbishop of Naples has been making the same gestures and uttering the same words for centuries: it can therefore in no way be a purely physical-chemical process.

Liquefaction is one miracle, and the absence of liquefaction is another: Every time the blood did not become liquid, Naples and the surrounding region invariably experienced serious difficulties in the weeks or months that followed; for example, in 1528 (plague epidemic), 1698 (eruption of Vesuvius), 1767 and 1779 (new major lava flows affecting the surrounding villages), 1980 (earthquake killing more than 2,000 inhabitants), etc.

Conversely, liquefaction systematically indicates that the city will not suffer any disasters and that it will be protected in some inexplicable way: 1497 (surprising end to a plague epidemic), 1631 (sudden halt to the eruption of Vesuvius), 1944 (lava flows invading several villages around Naples literally freeze), etc.

One of the countless prophecies linked to the miracle of liquefaction is that of May 1799, when Napoleon's troops occupied Naples. It was a bad omen that the blood remained clotted. A few days later, the French army was forced to leave the city.

Accumulated over half a millennium, with 22,000 precious objects (gold, precious stones) donated by faithful Italians and other nationalities, the "Treasure" of Saint Januarius bears witness to the martyr's extraordinary popularity, which was unceasing and widespread, whatever the reigning dynasty in Naples.

Saint Januarius's blood does not coagulate according to an "immutable" process, regulated by a strict scientific protocol: it may only become liquid after several minutes, or even at the end of the ceremony; only part of the contents of the vials may become liquid while the other half remains coagulated, thus ruling out any possible natural explanation (human blood coagulates in a few seconds); sometimes the liquefaction begins before the glasss ampoules are removed from the cabinet, which also rules out the hypothesis of a natural action by manual manipulation and raising the temperature of the vials.

In 1965, while some people were questioning the authenticity of the relics of Saint Janvier, Italian professor Giuseppe Lambertini established that the skeleton he had analysed was that of a man of around thirty-five years of age: in fact, the saint died at the age of thirty-three.

Witnesses to the liquefaction miracles came from all walks of life and included many people who had no interest in lying or promoting false miracles: municipal, regional and national officials, ambassadors, captains of industry, Catholic prelates and various religious leaders.

Even popes come to these ceremonies: Blessed Pius IX in 1849, and Francis in 2015, took part in one of the three annual ceremonies. The Roman pontiffs would never have travelled, especially in public, if they had not believed in these recurring miracles. Rome was notoriously cautious in such matters.

It has been claimed that the contents of the vials could have been "prepared" and manipulated before the ceremonies. This is totally false. In fact, theliturgical niche containing the two vials and the saint's relics is closed by two solid silver doors, themselves locked by two keys, one of which is personally guarded by the archbishop of Naples and the other by a representative of the "Deputies", a company of lay people whose members are chosen by lot to prevent any abuse. Apart from these two people, no one in the world can open the niche.

There are plenty of films and reports from all over the world showing the miracle as it happens.

It is naturally possible to liquefy coagulated blood by breaking down the fibrin (fibrous protein) that traps the blood cells, by injecting an alcoholic solution for example. But no one has ever caught anyone adding a product to the flasks: they have been hermetically sealed for centuries; moreover, blood dissolved by a natural process cannot become solid again, like Saint Januarius's! What's more, natural liquefaction can only happen once, unlike the countless occurrence of Januarius's blood in the Naples Cathedral.

In the 1980s, the Italian Committee for the Investigation of Claims on Pseudosciences (CICAP, an Italian non-profit skeptical educational organization, founded in 1989, whose main goal is to promote a scientific and critical investigation of pseudosciences, the paranormal, so-called mysteries and the unusual, with the aim of encouraging a more scientific attitude and critical thinking) put forward the idea that liquefaction was induced by "thixotropy" (liquefaction of certain substances by agitation); in 1981, French professor Henri Broch took up such an explanation after enclosing jojoba or coconut oil in an ampoule and drawing similar conclusions. None of these hypotheses offers the slightest explanation of the realities of the miracles of Saint Januarius's blood: partial and sometimes non-existent liquefaction, maintenance of the liquefied state for several days without any manipulation of the vials, and so on.

In 1989, Italian Professor Pier Luigi Baima Bollone, Director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the University of Turin, definitively established by means of spectrographic analysis that the two vials did indeed contain haemoglobin, which had been discovered in 1898 and again in 1902 using less sophisticated means of investigation.

In 1991, three Italian researchers announced that they had devised a solution identical to that in the holy vials, using products already known in the Middle Ages (calcium carbonate, sodium chloride, iron chloride, etc.) - liquids that could solidify when shaken. What's more, without human intervention (i.e. shaking), nothing happens, which is completely different from the Naples miracle, since liquefaction can occur even before the vials are removed from their niche.

In 2005, the Italian astrophysicist Margarita Hack took up such hypotheses, declaring that the vials contained a "chemical composition based on iron, dating from the Middle Ages, which is solid if left untouched, but becomes liquid when shaken" (La Stampa): once again, this statement completely fails to take into account the very specific ways in which the miracles of liquefaction performed by the two vials were unique and therefore impossible to reproduce in a laboratory.

Synthèse :

Saint Januarius (21 April 272 - 19 September 305) was a Neapolitan Catholic of noble origin, bishop of Benevento (now Campania, Italy), who was martyred during the persecutions under the reigh of Emperor Diocletian.

Januarius was arrested in September 305 along with two other Christians, on the orders of Dragonsus, proconsul of Campania, while visiting a deacon named Sosius. Refusing to renounce his faith, he had his head cut off near the Solfatare in Pozzuoli, in the forum known as Vulcano. Some of his blood was collected by a woman called Eusebia, his former nurse.

The veneration of this martyr appeared very early on. In 431, his body was transported from Agnano, where he had died, to the Capodimonte catacombs in Naples, where a fresco depicts the saint's head surrounded by two candles. It is highly likely that he was already being discreetly worshipped by Christians.

The first miracle of blood liquefaction took place in 431, during the transfer of the saint's relics. The procession carrying the relics stopped off in what is now Piazza Bernini, where the blood, carried by Eusebia, began to "bubble" in the presence of the Bishop of Naples.

In 512, Stephen I, Bishop of Naples, had a small church built in his honour, into which the skull and the two ampoules of blood were transported. In the 7th century, another place of worship was built on the site of Saint Januarius's martyrdom, which was itself replaced in 1580 by a much larger church, the "Shrine of Saint Januarius", in La Solfatare.

Hidden away to avoid the Lombard raids in the region, the blood of Saint Januarius was the object of intense and immense popular devotion throughout the Middle Ages. Two ceremonies were held each year (on 13 April, the date on which the saint's relics were transferred to Naples, and on 19 September, the anniversary of his execution), during which the blood inexplicably liquefied in the hands of the Bishop of Naples (and then the Archbishop from the early 11th century onwards), leading to exceptional collective jubilation throughout the city. Saint Januarius, who became the patron saint of the Neapolitan city, enjoyed exceptional popularity among the Italians, with the faithful believing that he was responsible for spectacular miracles that saved and protected the population, such as the ending of epidemics and the stopping of the eruption of Vesuvius.

These two annual events are mentioned in the Naples liturgical calendar as far back as the episcopate of Athanasius I (849-872).

The three annual ceremonies during which the miracles take place, as we know them today, were established at the same time as the construction of Naples Cathedral, dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption, which began in 1290 but was not completed until the end of the 15th century.

Every 16 December (in reference to the miracle of the end of the eruption of Vesuvius on 16 December 1631), every Saturday before the first Sunday in May (the transfer of the saint's body from Pozzuoli to Naples), and every 19 September (the anniversary of his martyrdom), the archbishop of Naples takes hold of the handle of the reliquary containing the miraculous vials to display them for the veneration of the faithful.

The reigning dynasties of Naples maintained the feasts of Saint Januarius and great devotion to the miraculous blood without any discontinuity or decrease in popular devotion. Over the years, the "treasure" offered to the saint (i.e precious gifts given to the cathedral) continued to grow, proving the strength of the bond between the Neapolitans and their patron saint. In 1527, a confraternity of twelve families (lay people, including some municipal officials) was set up to guard the treasure; in 1679, a priceless gold necklace set with precious stones, designed by Michele Dato, became part of the treasure. In 1931, King Humbert II of Italy and his wife Marie-José of Belgium donated a solid gold and coral ciborium to the treasury. In all, 22,000 gifts have been given to the treasury of Saint Januarius.

Three times a year, in front of a packed church, the archbishop of Naples first celebrates mass, after which he extracts the two vials containing the saint's blood from the special cabinet, which he then raises in front of the faithful. If the blood liquefies, it is a good sign; on the other hand, if it remains solid, Naples will experience difficulties in the current year. These prophecies have been fulfilled ever since the first ostensions of the relics.

Voltaire and the philosophers of the eighteenth century have made ironic comments about the miracles of Saint Januarius and, since the end of the nineteenth century, several analyses have been carried out, apart from the study of the liquid contained in the two ampoules, which would involve extracting it without knowing what would happen to it. To put it briefly, none of these analyses took into account the incomparable circumstances in which miracles occur: firstly, from a prophetic and spiritual point of view, non-liquification is a miracle that certainly heralds a catastrophe (scientists obviously don't see this phenomenon of the liquid not disintegrating as any kind of prodigy); secondly: liquefaction can occur at times that are scientifically improbable, either before the vials have even been removed from their reliquary, or at a totally indeterminate moment (sometimes hours after the containers have been "shaken" in the hands of the Neapolitan archbishop, which definitively contradicts the supporters of the theory that manual shaking of the vials is the cause of liquefaction), or at the end of the ceremony. What's more, the blood can remain in a liquid state for days on end, something that has never happened under natural conditions.

Patrick Sbalchiero

Au-delà des raisons d'y croire :

If the miracle of liquefaction had taken place only once, or only on a few dates scattered throughout history, we could legitimately question the authenticity of the phenomenon. But this miracle has been attested to for over fifteen centuries, not by isolated witnesses, churchmen or small groups of fervent believers, but by tens of thousands of people from all walks of life, of all ages and from all socio-cultural backgrounds.

Aller plus loin :

"Janvier (saint)", Dictionnaire d'Histoire et de Géographie Ecclésiastiques, vol. 26, Paris, 1997, col. 983-989.

En savoir plus :

Thomas Granier, "Un miracle accompli par le contact d'une effigie de saint Janvier à Naples au IXe siècle", Revue belge de Philologie et d'Histoire, 1997, 75, 4, p. 957-966.
Anne Mathieu, "Sang (miracles du)", in Patrick Sbalchiero (ed.), Dictionnaire des miracles et de l'extraordinaire chrétiens, Paris, Fayard, 2002, pp. 706-707.
M. Mitov, La Liquefaction du "sang" de saint Janvier. Matière sensible : mousses, gels, cristaux liquides et autres miracles, Paris, Le Seuil, 2010.
Francesco Paolo de Ceglia, "Thinking with the Saint: The Miracle of Saint Janarius of Naples and Science in Early Modern Europe", Early Science and Medicine, 19, 2014, pp. 133-173.
The short video report from Rome reports: "The blood of St. Januarius liquefied while the Pope visited Naples.