"Napoli Can Rest Easy Tonight, its Saint Still Bleeds..."

 

Naples is a city with deep Catholic roots, but as a tour guide told us, the Neapolitans are also deeply superstitious - with the difference between faith and superstition being a personal one.

One of my many peculiar paradoxes is that I don't consider myself a person of faith and yet I love learning about the traditions of various faiths. That interest began as I dug into my history teaching career and kids had such genuine, philosophical, inquisitive, and profoundly personal questions. It was intimidating at first - to answer questions with grace and respect while still rooting in secular truth - but over time it became one of my favourite mini units.

There were thousands of people in the Cathedral and packed in the piazza outside. The Cathedral, like most Christian buildings, is gorgeous (read: expensive) and the way the light came through the glass and reflected on the gold platting was pretty spectacular 

As we travel the world, I'm enjoying developing that interest in a new way. On Sept 19th I intentionally put myself in the heart of an incredibly religious, and superstitious, Napoli tradition. The best news is that the Cathedral didn't burn down with my heathenesque presence but a close second is that the blood liquified. Yup, you read that right. Our Military/DoD community from Pozzuoli witnessed a ritual called the Blood Liquefaction.  

Instagram Reel from Danielle,

 a Friendly Pozzuoli Townsie. 👈 click!

for the life of me I can’t figure out howto embede it! Creative credit to our bulldog owning friend Danielle Roll!

This is one (of many) ways faith and superstition intersect in this city. There is a deeply held belief that the results of this ceremony are directly tied to the fate and fortunes of the Neapolitan people.  

Rewind to antiquity. 

A depiction of San Gennaro many years after his death

Emperor Diocletian ruled during a time when Christianity/Catholicism was taking hold of the citizens of the Empire. He was known for persecuting, and executing, the Christian faithful, often in extremely horrific manners. After a fire destroyed part of his palace, he blamed the Christians, and one of his scapegoats was scorched with fire, with salt and vinegar then poured into the open wounds, and then slowly roasted over an open flame.

Crowds outside the Cathedral along with military and police

He continued this persecution and in the year 305A.D. he sentenced a local bishop to death. Initially, Gennaro was to be executed in the Flavian Amplitheater of Pozzuoli (just down the road from us) by being fed to bears. However, recognizing this could incite riots with the public who were increasingly embracing Christianity, he instead had the bishop beheaded at the Solfatara volcanic crater. While this part of the story is horrific it is hardly unique for the Roman Empire. What followed, led us to stand with thousands of other people on a Tuesday morning staring at a glass jar full of blood. 

As the story goes, a woman gathered up the blood of the recently deceased, now referred to as San Gennaro. She placed the blood in two glass vials called ampoules. Decades later, Gennaro's body was being moved from one location to another. On the side of the road was the woman with the vials. With the passage of time the blood of course had dried in the glass. But as the body of Gennaro passed by the blood in the vials liquefied. 

Depiction of his martyrdom... minus both the bears and the volcano 🤷‍♀️

Thus a tradition began to grow from the seeds of faith. Starting in 1389, and now observed three times a year, the blood of San Gennaro liquifies in the very same vials. Ceremony days include:

• The 1st Sat in May celebrates when his "relics" or remains were reunited. Literally when his decapitated head rejoined his body in a single grave

• Sept 19th. Gennaro's Feast Day observing his death day or the day he became a martyr  

• Dec 16th. Commemorating the day prayer to Gennaro supposedly stopped an eruption of Vesuvius mid eruption in 1631

**If the blood liquefies it is considered a good omen to the city and her people.

**If it doesn't, it is a bad omen with some historical moments to justify the thought. 

Times the blood hasn't liquified includes:

• 1939 and the start of the Second World War
• 1940 and Italy's joining of the War on the side of the Nazis
• 1943 and the start of the Nazi occupation of Italy
• 1944 and an eruption of Vesuvio
• 1980 and a nearby earthquake that killed 3,000 people
• 1988 and an important soccer loss to Milan
• 2020 and...well, 2020 including the death of their soccer demigod.

He was executed on what we now know is an active part of a super volcano. Whatever keeps you safe at night Napoli! 

So, there we stood with thousands of others on Sept 19th wondering if the miracle would happen. Our little group was really wondering since we don't speak enough Italian to understand the prayers or even the announcement that it had or had not happened! 

It was a pretty cool experience. While I don't follow a specific religion, in these moments, I understand their draw. The solidarity is incredible. I'm curious how that solidarity would shift to shared dread had the liquefaction had not happened. 

Video of the clergy an the blood procession to the altar

Obviously, the scientific skeptic in me has a lot of questions. It's odd that the bad things that are explained away by the non liquefaction only started happened relatively recently. There's a pretty clear lack of chain of custody in the decades between his death and the first supposed miracle and the randomness that that woman happened to be there. There are the questions around an institution that doesn't have a great track record in regard to their manipulation of the masses and of course the primary question of the scientific realities of the actual liquefaction.

For our science community friends, the current belief is that there is a thixotropic gel in the vials that creates a suspension of hydrated iron oxide or FeO(OH). The materials would have been easily available in antiquity. This would create the colour and consistency of blood and also cause it to become more viscous when left undisturbed and more fluid when stirred. 🧐

Video of hymns and prayers. I caught about every 50th word when the bishop and priest spoke but "hallelujah" sounds the same in English and Italian when sang! 

But, as often is the case when dealing with matters of faith, those questions are rather irrelevent. The people of this city overwhelmingly believe. They are invested in these ceremonies. As more earthquakes rattle our smaller community, the local social media posts have people calling to the ceremony to potentially predict another volcanic eruption. We can only imagine the mass exodus and the the dip in housing prices if it hadn't liquefied! 

Even doggos can come to pay their respects to San Gennaro! 

Today, the miracle had happened before the Priest opened the safe where the blood is kept. If I had some control in the morale of the people post pandemic, I would have liquefied it too. But I'm not a person of faith let alone San Gennaro. Today, in his role as the Patron Saint of Napoli, he liquefied his blood to bring positivity, faith, and comfort to his people. I'm grateful to have gotten to witness the event even if for me it is cultural and not religious. 

Cute puppet show on the streets of centro storico retelling the story of San Gennaro...I think. I only caught the part of the city where we live and San Gennaro died.

So, until Dec 16th, rest easy Napoli,

 your saint still bleeds. ✝️🩸