Eucharistic miracle of Lanciano

According to tradition, a Basilian monk who had doubts about the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist found, when he said the words of consecration at Mass, that the bread and wine changed into flesh and blood.

The Byzantine emperor Leo III the Isaurian, who reigned from 717 to 741, implemented a strict policy against religious images by promulgating an edict in 730 ordering their destruction.

The host matter consists of a rounded membrane, yellow-brown in colour, with a shading of greater intensity, and contains a large central hole; it is identified with the flesh.

The positivity of the oxidase test, generally indicative for blood, can also occur in the presence of organs rich in ferments, vegetal extracts, finely divided metals.

[12][13][14] In the microscopic examination, no cellular elements appear but a finely granular material, yellow-brown-greenish in color, together with rare foreign bodies of probable vegetal nature.

Silvano Fuso, a member of the Italian Committee for the Investigation of Claims of the Pseudosciences, pointed out the strangeness of the fact that there were no sources older than 1574 for an event of the eighth century.