Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano

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Reliquary of the Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano

The Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano , also known as the Miracle of the Host of Lanciano or the Miracle of Blood of Lanciano , is an event recognized as a miracle by the Roman Catholic Church . It is said to have happened in the 8th century in Lanciano, Italy .

History and environment

Lanciano is located in Abruzzo about 50 km south of the city of Chieti near the Adriatic coast. The city has been called Anxanum since antiquity and was ruled by Byzantines in late antiquity until the conquest by the Lombards in the 6th century . In a little church that was built at the legendary place of execution of St. Longinus is said to have been built, a small community of Greek monks has existed since that time. In the 11th or 12th century, Benedictines are said to have settled at the Longinus Church in the place now called Lanzano , who replaced the Greek monks. In any case, towards the end of the 12th century, the church belonged to the Benedictine Abbey of San Giovanni in Venere, about 10 kilometers away . In the course of the 13th century, the Borgo was built around the church , one of three medieval expansion districts that gave the city its stable appearance until well beyond the 17th century. The Benedictines were expelled from the city in 1229 in connection with party battles between supporters of the Pope and the Emperor. Church dedicated to Martyrs Legontian and Domitian came into the possession of the Bishop of Chieti . In 1252 he donated the possibly earthquake-damaged complex to the Franciscans , who rebuilt the convent and in 1258 built a monastery church over the old church building and dedicated it to St. Dedicated to Francis of Assisi .

A host relic that has been kept in the church for an unknown time is said to have been venerated as early as 1300. Christoph Münch connects the beginning of this veneration, which is not tangible in the sources before the arrival of the Friars Minor, with the transfer of the remains of the Apostle Thomas by crusaders to the little town of Ortona a few kilometers away in 1258, the same year in which it was the Franciscan Church in Lanciano was built. Both relics could be visited by pilgrims one after the other within a very short time. An indication of the connection between the two cults is also provided by the later legend, which explicitly compares the unbelieving monk who experiences the miracle of the Eucharist with the Apostle Thomas.

In the last third of the 13th century there were also disputes between Dominican and Franciscan theologians about the details of the Eucharistic doctrine of change. While the Dominicans remained skeptical about the possibility of Eucharistic host and blood miracles because they supported the later church-recognized declaration of transubstantiation as a physically necessarily invisible event by Thomas Aquinas , some Franciscan theologians such as Wilhelm von Militona († 1260), Johannes Peckham or Petrus Johannis Olivi , who represented the particularly radical, spiritual wing of the Franciscan movement, or Johannes Duns Scotus, such miracles were conceivable and defended them against critics.

According to legend, the relic of the host appeared miraculously for the first time in the summer of 1566 during the Turkish wars , when it was supposed to be brought to safety by a Franciscan brother in the event of a feared incursion by Ottoman troops into Abruzzo, but he was unable to remove it from its place of storage. Then the remains were locked in an ivory box and placed on the altar of the church.

After the religious were expelled in the course of the secularization in 1809, the monastery and the church in which the relics are displayed have been in the possession of the Minorite Order since 1953 .

event

The Church of San Francesco in the Piazza Plebiscito in Lanciano, in which the place of worship of the Eucharistic Miracle ( Santuario del Miracolo Eucaristico ) is located.

The event is first described in a 1631 document, written by a canon named Croce on behalf of Archbishop Andrea Gervasio. It explains the origin of the relic kept in Lanciano with a Eucharistic miracle that is said to have happened to a Greek Basilian monk in the 8th century.

On an unspecified day "around the seven centuries", the miracle is said to take place during the morning celebration of Holy Mass in the monastery church of St. Longinus happened. According to tradition, the monk, who doubted the real presence of Christ in the Eucharistic figures of bread and wine, is said to have noticed the visible transformation of bread and wine into real flesh and blood during the change : during the words of change , the host became human flesh and the altar wine turned into human blood.

Assumptions that the monk might be a Greek who fled to Italy during the iconoclasm were used to date the event (mostly from the years between 730 and 750), but cannot be substantiated. The same applies to considerations that try to explain the fact that a Greek monk celebrated mass in the Latin rite and used an oblate host, which would contradict Greek liturgical practices and for this time also not yet be proven in the Latin liturgy is. The outer form of the host relic venerated in Lanciano is a typical hostia magna (unleavened priestly host ) of the medieval Latin rite, as it spread in the western church from the 9th century ; the earliest witnesses are Alcuin (735–804) and Rabanus Maurus (780–856). Usually the period in which such hosts made from unleavened bread dough became generally accepted in Latin was not given until the 12th century. For the time of the miracle, some authors assume that the Latin and Greek rites of Mass coexist in Italy and speculate that the Basilian monk had to celebrate Mass in the Latin rite and, precisely because of this, doubted whether the real presence of Christ in the sacrament could also come about with unleavened bread.

The theological background for the interpretation of the miracle report is represented by the doctrine of transubstantiation, which has been advocated by the Roman Catholic Church since the 13th century, according to which bread and wine are "substantially" changed into the body and blood of Jesus Christ when the priest speaks about it. Discussions and controversies about the manner in which Christ is present in the sacrament of the altar first arose in the Carolingian period in France in the 9th century; Early reports of miracles of the Eucharist have also come down to us in this context. Whether and since when in the early Middle Ages the notion prevailed among Western theologians that the decisive consecration of bread and wine took place through the words of change ( Verba Testamenti ) is controversial among theology historians. The Eastern Church Liturgy is this idea still alien.

The designation of the monk as " Basilian " is ahistorical, as there was no Basilian order at the assumed time. This was only in 1579 by Pope Gregory XIII. founded. However, Greek monks in Italy have been known colloquially as "Basilians" since the 13th century, starting from Sicily. In the last third of the 16th century, i.e. at the time when the Lanciano event was made known and documented, there were actually ecclesiastical political discussions about the rite membership and rite change of Greek-Catholic monks of the Basilian Congregation in southern Italy.

In 1636 an epitaph was erected in the Franciscan Church, on which the event is recounted in broad outline and the condition of the relics is described.

Investigations

Franciscan symbols: the conformitas (arms crossed); the six-winged seraph ; the five wounds; the Jerusalem cross . The marks of stigmatization are reminiscent of the five blood clots from Lanciano.

The material, which consists of a remnant of the host and five blood clots, is said to have been examined for the first time in 1574 by Archbishop Gaspare Rodriguez. He is said to have determined that the total weight of the five lumps corresponds exactly to the weight of each individual lump, which is why he recognized that the blood clots must be miraculous material. This phenomenon is only mentioned on the epitaph erected in 1636. Later experiments could not confirm the alleged observation.

Further investigations took place in 1637, 1770, 1886 and 1970. At the beginning of the 1970s, samples of the material were examined by several, in some cases independent, bodies. According to the documentation of the pilgrimage site, it turned out that it was actually human blood and not artificially mummified meat. The supposed remnant of the host is said to have been identified as a slice of human heart tissue , which at an unexplained time was attached to a wooden board with purpose nails .

Adoration

According to legend, the Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano is dated to the first half of the 8th century by the followers and is therefore sometimes (instead of the otherwise relevant miracle of Bolsena from 1263) referred to as the first such miracle in church history . The first attested location of the host relic was a side altar in the choir area of the Franciscan Church to the right of the main altar. The brothers are said to have deposited the relic there after the Turkish attack in 1566. Since 1636 the relics have been kept in an iron sacrament house that has been preserved to this day in a side chapel, where the epitaph erected in the same year is also located. In 1700 the furnishings of the church were changed to Baroque style. The Santuario Eucaristico , the place of worship of the miracle, has been integrated into the marble altar of the church since 1902 . The relics are in Ostensorien in a separate tabernacle above the actual Tabernacle on the high altar issued the church and are also accessible via a staircase landing of marble behind the altar for the veneration of the faithful. The host is enclosed in a valuable monstrance , under which a sealed glass bowl contains the blood globules. This reliquary dates from 1913 and replaced the first glass vessel from 1713.

At the request of Archbishop Petrarch, Pope Leo XIII. Pilgrims who visit the sanctuary in the eight days leading up to the annual festival on the last Sunday in October made a plenary indulgence for all time in 1887 .

The sanctuary only gained supraregional attention since the histological examinations of the material in the 1970s, which some followers regarded as "proof of authenticity", and which particularly radiated into the USA . Unlike the Volto Santo in Manoppello , which is only a few kilometers away, no incumbent Pope has visited the Franciscan Church in Lanciano. However, on November 3, 1974, the then Archbishop of Cracow, Karol Cardinal Wojtyła, visited the sanctuary in Lanciano, who four years later ascended the papal seat as John Paul II. Some authors say that he has a special personal connection to the Eucharistic blood relic. In 2005, the then Cardinal Secretary of State Angelo Sodano visited the pilgrimage site.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b SS Legonziano e Domiziano. Presentation on the town history website tutto Lanciano , accessed on January 2, 2017 (Italian).
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g L'Evento . Presentation on the website of the pilgrimage site, accessed on December 26, 2016 (Italian).
  3. ^ Diploma from 1195 , with the Emperor Heinrich VI. the abbey confirmed the possession of the Church of St. Longinus in Lanzano. Entry in the monastery , edited by Horst Enzensberger; accessed on December 31, 2016.
  4. ^ Adolfo Morizio: Eremitismo e monachesimo in Italia tra XIII e XIV secolo: i "Celestini" di fra Pietro del Morrone. Storia e documenti (metà sec. XIII-1320). (PDF; 4.5 MB) Dissertation, University of Padua , submitted on January 31, 2008, p. 124.
  5. ↑ a b Andreas English: The miracle pope. Munich 2011, p. 95.
  6. ↑ Christoph Münch: A metamorphosis that puts unbelief to the test , in: Vatican Magazin 11/2016, pp. 10–12
  7. ^ David Burr : Eucharistic Presence and Conversion in Late Thirteenth-Century Franciscan Thought. The American Philosophical Society , Philadelphia 1984, pp. 19 f .; 41; 51; 82; 85 u. ö.
    emerging to the since the 9th century, and especially in the 12th and 13th centuries faith strengthened occurring on blood miracle and the critical reaction of theologians see. Arnold Angenendt : History of Religiosity in the Middle Ages. 4., corr. Ed., Primus, Darmstadt 2009, p. 366; Helmut Hoping : My body given for you - history and theology of the Eucharist 2., exp. Ed., Herder, Freiburg i. B. 2015, p. 208 f.
  8. ↑ “Circa gli anni del Signori settecento” (according to the inscription on the epitaph built in 1636 in the Franciscan church; Fig. See website of the pilgrimage site).
  9. ↑ La Chiesa di S. Francesco. Presentation on the town history website tutto Lanciano , accessed on January 2, 2017 (Italian).
  10. ↑ a b Odoardo Linoli: Studio anatomo-istologico sul "cuore" del Miracolo Eucharistico di Lanciano (VIII sec.). In L'Osservatore Romano , April 23, 1982, p. 5 (Italian).
  11. ↑ Helmut Hoping: My body given for you. History and Theology of the Eucharist. 2nd edition, Freiburg i. B. 2015, p. 180; 200.
  12. ↑ a b Stefan Winkle : The blood miracle as a microbiological and mass psychological phenomenon. Contribution to the history of the Bacterium prodigiosum (Serratia marcescens) and the phenomenology of intolerance. In: Laboratoriumsmedizin 7 (1983), Issue 9, pp. 143-149 (here: pp. 143 f.).
  13. ↑ Werner Köhler : Blood miracles and miracle blood bacteria. In: Angelika Lozar, Sybill De Vito-Egerland (ed.): Middle Ages and Renaissance. In honorem Fritz Wagner. Saur, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-598-73018-7 , pp. 47-72 (here: p. 69).
  14. ↑ Inge M. Thürkauf : The Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano 750 AD (PDF) In: Kirchliche Umschau (Journal of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X. ), 12th year, No. 3 (March 2009) ( Memento from 1 January 2017 in the Internet Archive ), p. 24.
  15. ^ David Burr: Eucharistic Presence and Conversion in Late Thirteenth-Century Franciscan Thought. Philadelphia 1984, p. 2; Helmut Hoping: My body was given for you. History and Theology of the Eucharist. 2nd edition, Freiburg i. B. 2015, p. 211.
  16. ↑ Helmut Hoping: My body given for you. History and Theology of the Eucharist. 2nd edition, Freiburg i. B. 2015, p. 185.
    With regard to the miracle of Lanciano, Hoping takes a separate opinion, insofar as he starts from the historical reliability of the legendary and mostly anachronistic dating of the event around the year 700 and thinks that it was the Eucharistic miracle of Lanciano and similar blood relics of Christ are understandable, the partly very realistic positions that were represented in the early medieval Eucharist controversies (ibid. p. 182).
  17. ↑ Helmut Hoping: My body given for you. History and Theology of the Eucharist. 2nd edition, Freiburg i. B. 2015, p. 192 and Note 53.
  18. ↑ Isydor Patrylo: Basilian . In: Walter Kasper (Ed.): Lexicon for Theology and Church . 3. Edition. tape 2 . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1994, Sp. 57 f .
  19. ↑ Horst Enzensberger : The Ordo S. Basilii, a monastic structure of the Roman Church (12th-16th centuries) . In: La chiesa greca in Italia dall'VIII al XV secolo. Padua 1973, pp. 1139-1151.
  20. ^ Joan Carroll Cruz: Eucharistic Miracles and Eucharistic Phenomena in the Lives of the Saints. Charlotte 2010, p. 4 f.
  21. ↑ Odoardo Linoli: Histological, immunological and biochemical studies on the flesh and blood of the eucharistic miracle of Lanciano (8th century). In: Quaderni Sclavo di diagnostica clinica e di laboratorio 7 (1971), volume 3, pp. 661-674 (Italian; biblical follow-up to the study in PubMed ).
  22. ↑ Dirk Kocks: Blood miracles (blood, holy things; blood hostages) . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 2, Artemis & Winkler, Munich / Zurich 1983, ISBN 3-7608-8902-6 , column 292 f.
  23. ↑ Patrick Sbalchiero: Dictionnaire des miracles et de l'extraordinaire chrétiens. Paris 2002, p. 541; already marked as questionable in Peter Browe : The Eucharistic Miracles of Transformation of the Middle Ages. In: ders .: The Eucharist in the Middle Ages. Research into liturgical history with a cultural-historical intent (= Forgotten Theologians, Volume 1). 5th edition, Lit Verlag, Berlin 2010, pp. 265–289 (here: p. 268; first published in 1929).
  24. ^ A b William Saunders: The Miracle of Lanciano . Arlington Catholic Herald 2003, accessed December 26, 2016.
  25. ^ Joan Carroll Cruz: Eucharistic Miracles and Eucharistic Phenomena in the Lives of the Saints. Charlotte 2010, p. 4.
  26. ↑ a b Christoph Münch: A metamorphosis that puts unbelief to the test. In: Vatican Magazin 11/2016, p. 15.
  27. ↑ Visitatori illustri . Documentation on the website of the pilgrimage site, accessed on December 26, 2016.
  28. ↑ So with Andreas Englisch : The miracle pope. Johannes Paul II. Munich 2011, p. 106 u. ö.