Incorruptibility

Incorruptibility is a Catholic and Orthodox belief that divine intervention allows some human bodies (specifically saints and beati) to completely or partially avoid the normal process of decomposition after death as a sign of their holiness.

Incorruptibility is thought to occur even in the presence of factors which normally hasten decomposition, as in the cases of saints Catherine of Genoa, Julie Billiart and Francis Xavier.

Bonaventure, one of the men who originally exhumed the corpse in 1263, saw this as a sign that Anthony was a "messenger of God’s love.

[7] The remains of Bernadette Soubirous were inspected multiple times, and reports by the church tribunal confirmed that the body was preserved.

4, Chapter 10) based on the Jewish Apocrypha and Aggadah mentions an alleged case of bodily incorruptibility of the Biblical Baruch, scribe of Jeremiah (whose tomb is found in Iraq).