Vodnjan relics collection

The Church of Sveti Blaz (St. Blaise)

The collection of relics from Vodnjan and the associated mummies from Vodnjan (it. Corpi santi , Croat . Vodnjanske mumije svetaca ) are located in the pilgrimage church of Sv.Blaž (St. Blaise) in Vodnjan in northwestern Croatia near the city of Pula .

The Church of St. Blaise was built between 1760 and 1800 and with its sixty meter high church tower is the largest sacred building in the region.

Vodnjan became famous worldwide for its reliquary collection, which includes a total of 370 relics from 250 Christian saints, including undisturbed bodies. This unique reliquary is located in the rooms of the former sacristy . It is the largest collection in Croatia and one of the largest in Europe . Several thousand pilgrims visit this place every year .

The collection of sacred works of art includes 730 objects from the 4th to 11th centuries. The church building has ten altars, 24 paintings and 18 sculptures.

Main relics

body

of Saint Leon Bembo (lived in Venice in the 12th century ),
of St. Giovanni Olini (lived in Venice in the 14th century )
Saint Nikolosa Bursa (lived in Koper in the 15th century ).

There are also mummified body parts in Vodnjan

of Saint Barbara (lived in the 5th century) and
of St. Sebastian (lived in the 3rd century)

The reliquary collection includes objects from a period of fifteen centuries from the entire area of the former Roman Empire.

The secret of the mummies

The bodies were neither embalmed nor hermetically sealed. It has not yet been scientifically possible to explain what prevented the decomposition process. In addition to the bodies, the authentic clothing in which the saints were buried was also preserved. The mummies are in glass sarcophagi .

There are very few mummies in the world that could survive centuries in a non-desert-like climate without the use of special chemical processes. Mention should be made, for example, of the dead in the crypt of St. Michael's Church in Vienna .

Origin of the collection

To protect the mummies from being destroyed when Napoléon Bonaparte's troops marched in, Gaetano Gresler brought the collection from its original location near Venice to Vodnjan in 1817.

Web links

44.96073 13.84769Coordinates: 44 ° 57 ′ 38.6 " N , 13 ° 50 ′ 51.7" E