Tag Archives: blood

Saint Panteleimon and His Liquid Blood

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Relics of St. Panteleimon/Panteleon in a German church (municipality Vogtsburg im Kaiserstuhl, Baden-Württemberg), Niederrotweil,
St Pantaleon Church (built 1735–1741).

Saint Panteleimon (known by Pantaleon during his life, he changed his name shortly before his death, meaning “all-compassionate”), is counted in the West among the late-medieval Fourteen Holy Helpers and in the East as one of the Holy Unmercenary Healers. He was a physician and a martyr who was beheaded during the Great Persecution of AD 305. After the Black Death of the mid-14th century in Western Europe, as a patron saint of physicians and midwives, he came to be regarded as one of the fourteen guardian martyrs, the Fourteen Holy Helpers.

Eastern Christian icons of St. Panteleimon show him holding a small box of medicinal herbs which he can feed a patient with a spoon which he holds in his other hand. This makes him look like an Orthodox priest, about to give Holy Communion with a spoon, which underscores the connection between “health” and “salvation;” both words share a common linguistic root. Jesus’ miracles of healing in the Gospels are taken as paradigms of salvation: to be saved is to be spiritually healed and to be healed is to be saved.

When he was beheaded, his relics–including the spilled blood–were collected and preserved. A phial containing some of his blood was long preserved in the Italian city of Ravello. On the feast day of the saint (July 27), the blood is said to become fluid and to bubble.

He was also a popular saint in Venice, and he therefore gave his name to a character in the commedia dell’arte, Pantalone, a silly, wizened old man (Shakespeare’s “lean and slippered Pantaloon”) who was a caricature of Venetians. This character was portrayed as wearing trousers rather than knee breeches, and so became the origin of the name of a type of trouser called “pantaloons,” which was later shortened to “pants”.

You can read a fascinating article about St. Panteleimon and the liquid blood relic here; be sure to scroll down the page a little to find it. There is another blood relic of St. Panteleimon kept at a monastery in Madrid; you can see a television report about it here. You can also read another blog post about other saints with similar blood relics here.

A contemporary Russian icon of Saint Panteleimon, holding his spoon to administer medicine as a priest holds a spoon to share Holy Communion with the faithful.

Executions

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Ancient lithography representing the elements of devotional practices towards the holy souls of the executed in Sicily.

June 29, 1972 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled (5-4) that capital punishment was a violation of the Eighth Amendment prohibiting “cruel and unusual punishment.” The decision spared the lives of 600 individuals then sitting on death row. Four years later, in another ruling, the Court reversed itself and determined the death penalty was not cruel and unusual punishment. On October 4, 1976, the ban was lifted on the death penalty in cases involving murder.

Executions and the corpses of the executed have always fascinated people. Stories about the corpses fill books of folklore, legends and mythology. A hanged man’s hand was used to cure warts and skin tumors in England. All sorts of body parts were used in magic and medicine and these were taken from the corpses of the executed either by the executioner or by people who came to unearth and exhume the bodies of the executed in graveyards.

Prayers, folklore and customs from Southern Italy testify that even the souls of criminals had their part in the devotional practices of the population. Invoking the holy souls of the executed who dwelled for a long time in Purgatory, people established a compassionate connection between the actual and the heavenly world. The Catholic and political context of places like 19th-century Sicily, where the bandit might be seen as a popular hero who opposed the Bourbon oppressor, strongly connotes the concept of “holy soul”.

Drip, drip…Blood Relics

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The blood relic of St. Januarius (San Gennaro) in the cathedral of Naples.

The blood relic of St. Januarius (San Gennaro) in the cathedral of Naples.

This year’s festival of San Gennaro in New York’s Little Italy will be held on September 10-20, 2015. The festival marks one of the three days each year when the relic of St. Januarius’ blood in Naples liquefies during its display for public veneration. It turns out that there are other saintly blood relics in that part of Italy (surrounding Naples) that liquefy on the feast day of each particular saint, the most important being those of John the Baptist and Saint Panteleimon (a popular 4th century doctor-martyr).

The blood of the saint in question (usually an early martyr) is often sopped up with a cloth at the time of the saint’s execution and then placed in a glass ampule (small vial) which is then placed in a reliquary or monstrance for display [see the photo above]. On the feast day, the reliquary is brought out and the presiding cleric tilts the reliquary to demonstrate that the relic is dry and solid. He places the reliquary on the altar and the faithful celebrate the Eucharist or offer other prayers. At the conclusion, the presiding cleric again lifts the reliquary and tilts it, demonstrating that the relic has liquefied.

The first certain date of the liquefaction of St. Januarius’ blood is 1389. Over the following two and a half centuries official reports began to appear declaring that the blood spontaneously melted, at first once a year, then twice and finally three times a year. During times of distress, the relic would be carried in procession around Naples and has been credited with saving the city from explosions and eruptions from Mount Vesuvius.

Blood has always been considered an especially potent connection to the person whose blood it is. Blood was also considered the “life” of the person or animal and so to offer a few drops of blood in a rite was to offer the whole person or beast. Blood offerings were among the most valuable gifts to be offered to a god or goddess and the more blood offered, the more the god “owed” the worshipper. The more blood offered also usually meant the more horrific the request being made of the god or the more horrible the god who was being worshipped.

Blood was also said to give a temporary sort of life back to the dead. Among the ancient Greeks, ghosts were said to be whispering, gibbering shadows but if they licked up blood they could speak and think clearly again for at least some time.

A fascinating discussion of the blood relics in and around Naples can be read here.