Information about the life of Saint Januarius is contained in two medieval documents: the Bologna Acts of the 6th-7th centuries and the Vatican Acts of the 8th-9th centuries. According to them, the future saint was born in the second half of the 3rd century in the noble family of Januarii: his family name testified that the family considered the pagan god Janus as their patron. But Januarius himself, when he grew up, made his choice: he became a Christian, and over time - and the bishop of the city of Benevento.
Once, having learned that one of his associates, Deacon Sozius, was arrested and held in the town of Miseno, Januarius with Deacon Festus and the reader Desiderius went to visit him in prison. Sozius was imprisoned because he was fighting the Sibyls - soothsayers who were very popular among the people. The inhabitants of the Roman Empire asked them for advice and received an answer in poetic form. Therefore, the opposition to the Sibyls of the deacon Sozias caused outrage among their supporters. Januarius protested against the arrest of a like-minded person. And although no charges were brought against him himself, the very fact of visiting a friend in prison aroused the suspicions of the then governor of the province of Campania Timothy, who imagined a conspiracy in this. Most likely, the emperor's servant just wanted to distinguish himself before Diocletian - the ruler of Rome,persecuting Christians in every possible way. As a result, Saint Januarius was sentenced to death for no particular reason.
However, it was possible to kill the saint, by no means immediately. At first, Diocletian ordered to throw him, along with like-minded people, into a burning hearth, which they kept burning for three days, but Januarius and his friends came out unharmed. Then they threw him at the mercy of wild animals, and again nothing came of it: the animals, like domestic cats, began to lick the saint's feet. Then they decided not to experiment, and the saint was simply beheaded. But here it was not without incidents. The executioner, who was supposed to carry out the execution, suddenly went blind. Januarius healed him. When sight returned to the executioner, he nevertheless cut off the head of Januarius and his associates. However, the seeds of Christ's faith were sown in the souls of those present at these events. Five hundred people who had gathered to watch the execution, having seen the obvious miracles performed by the saints, converted to Christianity. Then, after the execution,one of the Christians named Eusebia collected the blood of Januarius in two vessels. It happened on September 19, 305.
A few days later, Januarius appeared to one of the inhabitants of Naples and said where his head was (after the saint had his head cut off, it rolled into the bushes). When this Christian found the head of Januarius, Eusebia approached him with vessels containing the blood of the saint. At this moment, the blood that had already dried up again became liquid. This is how an event happened that still surprises people today.
Saint Januarius became highly revered in Italy, his head and blood are in the Cathedral of Naples, in a chapel dedicated to the miraculous deliverance of this city from the plague in 1526.
The relic, sacred to Italians, is kept in two glass containers, placed in a silver and glass cylinder with a diameter of 20 centimeters. These small containers of the 4th century with the blood of the saint are in a metal cabinet. The larger vessel is two-thirds full of blood. In the lesser, there is very little blood. Both were sealed with a very hard putty, similar to clay, in the same 4th century. It is impossible to print them without damaging them, and this complicates the study of relics by modern researchers.
In 1389, at the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, the bishop of the city for the first time demonstrated sacred relics to the assembled townspeople. And then the unexpected happened. The blood, which for more than a thousand years had almost hardened, brought to Januarius's head, became liquid again, as if it had recently flowed out of the body. And then it thickened again.
So it was found that a blood clot can change its density and fill different volumes in the vessel - sometimes only slightly rising, and sometimes filling the entire container. The color of the blood also changes - from bright scarlet to dark or rusty. The process of transition of a substance from one state to another can take very different time - from several seconds to several minutes or even hours.
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On September 19 of each year, on the anniversary of the completion of the earthly life of Saint Januarius, many people gather near the Cathedral of Naples, wanting to touch this exciting mystery. You can see the miracle with your own eyes over the next eight days, while the blood is in a liquid state. Then bubbles appear on its surface, and it again becomes a clot. This phenomenon is also repeated on December 16, when the Neapolitans celebrate the anniversary of the miraculous deliverance from the eruption of Vesuvius in 1631 thanks to the intercession of the saint, and on the Saturday preceding the first Sunday in May, on the day of the transfer of the holy relics of Januarius from the village of Agro Marciano to the Neapolitan catacombs.
In 2005, a jubilee miracle happened - September 19 of that year marked the 1700th anniversary of the execution of Saint Januarius.
What is the reason for this mysterious phenomenon that occurs on certain days of the year, when dried blood changes color, volume and density, suddenly becoming pungent? Why does a dried lump turn into blood depending on the season - in spring, autumn and winter, no matter what temperature is in the cathedral? And finally, why doesn't a miracle always happen?
In May 1979, the blood of Saint Januarius remained standing, despite the fact that the capsule was exposed: it took a whole week. For the locals, this was a bad omen: after a similar incident in 1527, there was an epidemic of plague, which killed forty thousand people. After the vain expectations of a miracle, in 1979 there was a strong earthquake in southern Italy, then three thousand people died. However, in the following “unfortunate” years (1981, 1988, annually from 1991 to 1995, 1999, 2004 and 2006), when the thousands of parishioners gathered in the church of Santa Chiara did not wait for a repetition of the usual transformation of blood, no disasters followed.
When a miracle does not happen, the parishioners behave in a rather peculiar way: elderly women in black clothes standing in a separate group in the church begin to swear rudely. They are called “the aunts of Saint Januarius” and they must rebuke their “nephew” without hesitation in expressions in order for him to do what everyone expects of him.
This story with the transformation of dried blood into a liquid is contrary to the laws of physics and physiology. Scientists cannot give an answer about the nature of this phenomenon, which has been happening for seventeen centuries, despite numerous laboratory studies. However, the versions sound different.
Research began back in 1902, when Professor Sperindeo conducted some experiments without opening the vessels. The scientist found that the transformation of a thick substance into a liquid does not depend on temperature. Then he carried out a spectral analysis of the substance and came to the conclusion that it may contain oxygenated hemoglobin, that is, the substance contained in ancient vessels is indeed very similar to blood.
At the end of the 20th century, Italian chemists Luigi Garlaschelli, Franco Ramaccini and Sergio della Sala put forward a more prosaic version: they suggested that the blood of St. takes a vessel with blood from the box where it is stored. This property is called thixotropy. Scientists came to this opinion, having established that from time to time a miracle happened when no one was waiting for it, outside of solemn days, for example, when the vessel was moved from place to place to clean the storage. Thus, according to the researchers, neither the prayers of the believers, nor the approach of a vessel with blood to the head of Januarius are at all necessary for a miracle to occur.
As an experiment, chemists have resorted to modeling a similar substance. They synthesized a reddish-brown gel that thickened at rest and became liquid again upon shaking. Its components turned out to be quite simple and accessible to people of the Middle Ages: water, chalk, table salt and ferric chloride. At first, scientists were puzzled by the presence of iron, but along the way, the source of its origin was established: iron chloride is contained in the lava of the Vesuvius volcano, which is located near Naples.
Dr. Margarita Jac and Luigi Marcollo, scientists from the Italian Association for the Study of the Paranormal, have come to a similar conclusion: since the Middle Ages, the bowl appears to have contained a colloidal solution of iron hydroxide FeO (OH). Outwardly, it resembles blood, and when shaken, this dark brown, almost solid gel becomes liquid.
But these experiments still failed to solve the riddle of St. Januarius. The question remains: why does the substance synthesized by scientists turn into a liquid every time it is shaken, while Januarius' blood does not always become liquid? The shelf life of a product made by scientists is also questionable: what will it turn into after a few hundred years, can it be compared in terms of durability with the blood of St. Januarius?
The Italian scientist Gaston Lambertini, who has conducted many years of research on the artifact, claims that the phenomenon cannot be given any scientific explanation, and speaks of it like this: “The law of conservation of energy, the basics of the behavior of colloids (gelation and dissolution), the theory of aging of organic colloids, biological experiments, concerning the densification of plasma - against such a background, the substance for many centuries has challenged any law of nature that cannot explain what is supernatural. The blood of Saint Januarius is a clot that lives and breathes, it is not just a relic, but a sign of eternal life and resurrection."
Be that as it may, the ritual that makes the hearts of pilgrims tremble has been repeated for more than one thousand seven hundred years. The Bishop of Naples in the cathedral of the city, like many centuries ago, lifts the vessels, announcing to those present: "A miracle has happened!" - and shows liquid blood. Many of the people gathered there kneel down. There is always a place for a miracle in life.
A. V. Dzyuba. "Secrets and mysteries of history and civilizations"