On October 12, 2008, at the church dedicated to Saint Anthony of Sokółka, the Holy Mass of 8:30 AM is celebrated by a young vicar, Filip Zdrodowski. During Communion, unknowingly the Host falls from the hands of one of the priests. A woman kneeling, ready to receive the Eucharist, makes him notice it.
The priest remains paralyzed from fright and believing it was dirty, places it in the vasculum, a small silver vessel which contains the water utilized by priests to wash their fingers after distributing Communion.
At the end of the Holy Mass, the sacristan, Sister Julia Dubowska, takes the vasculum with the Host and for increased safety pours it into another vessel which she then locks in the safe where the chalices were kept.
A week later, on Sunday, October 19, around 8:00 AM, the sister opens the safe and finds the Host almost dissolved but with some strange red dots in the center. She immediately calls the prior who show them what was discovered. The Host was mostly dissolved.
Only a very small piece of the consecrated bread was left, undisconnected to the substance that appeared on its surface. Actually, part of the Host was patted in dust "strung red dots." The prior of Sokółka then contacted the Metropolitan Curia of Białystok.
At Białystok Legendi Osamodziski together with the Chancellor of the Curia, priests and professors examined the Host and astounded, decide to wait for the development of the events and for what would happen next.
On October 29 the vessel containing the Host is brought into the night chapel and locked in the tabernacle the next day, on order of the Archbishop, Father Gundlazlo delicately removes with a small spoon the partially dissolved Host with the blood colored substance on its interior and places it on a pure white corporal, with a red cross embroidered on its center.
The corporal is kept in the case used for keeping and carrying the Hosts, to be then locked again in the tabernacle. Over time the Host "heal" with the corporal and the red "dots" died. Only then two scientists of global fame and specialists in pathological anatomy at the Medical University of Białystok were consulted.
The Metropolitan Curia of Białystok has released this declaration concerning the Eucharistic Miracle that occurred at Sokółka:
"1. On October 12, 2008, a consecrated Host fell out of the hands of a priest while he was distributing Holy Communion. He picked it up and placed it in a vessel filled with water, in the tabernacle. After Mass, the vessel containing the host was placed in a safe present in the sacristy.
"2. On October 19, 2008, after opening the safe one could clearly see a red stain on the Host that had fallen, which with the naked eye immediately gave the impression of being a bloodstain.
"3. On October 29, 2008, the vessel containing the Host was transferred to the tabernacle of the chapel of the rectory. The next day the Host was removed from the water contained in the vessel and placed on a corporal inside the tabernacle.
"4. On January 7, 2009, the sample of the Host was taken and examined independently by two professionals in histopathology at the University of Medicine of Białystok. They issued a common declaration which states: "The sample sent for evaluation looks like myocardial tissue. In our opinion, of all the tissues of living organisms this is the one that resembles it the most."
"5. The Commission has noted that the analyzed Host is the one that has been moved from the sacristy to the tabernacle in the chapel of the rectory. Intervention by a third party has not been found.
"6. The case of Sokółka does not contradict the faith of the Church, but rather confirms it."
At the beginning of January of 2009 the Curia of Białystok asked two eminent specialists in pathological anatomy of the Medical University of Białystok - Professor Mariia Elżbieta Sobaniec-Łotowska and Professor Stanislaw Sulkowski, to analyze the samples of the bloodstained Host.
On January 7 - Professor Sobaniec-Łotowska went to Sokółka and took from the corporal a minuscule sample of the mysterious substance present in the Host.
In the side figure, there is an electronic microscope photo and a drawing showing the particular unions between the muscle cells of the myocardium.
Such unions are called intercalated discs and are present only among them there are some unions, to allow the action potential that makes the heart contract, to speed from one cell to another; for the entire volume of the muscle. The contraction of a muscle cell is then propagated to all the other cells.
A group of cells located in the sinoatrial node is the natural "pacemaker" of the heart, it regulates the heart rate. The impulse starts from the right atrium is proximally to the entrance of the superior vena cava.
The automatism that generates the myocardial contraction starts from the sinoatrial node and reaches for the atria and then the ventricles.
The professors of the UMB University had underlined that, in the case of the examined Host, in the sample they have found numerous bio-morphological indicators typical of cardiac muscle tissue such as, for example, the phenomenon of segmentation, namely damage to the fibers of the tissue of the cardiac muscle in the section where communicating junctions (structures characteristic of the cardiac muscle are found, and the phenomenon of fragmentation.
Such damages are visible in the form of numerous small lesions. These alterations can be observed only in fibers that were necrotic, that is alive, and show signs of the fast spasms of the cardiac muscle typical of the extreme phase preceding death.
Another important evidence of the fact that the material analyzed corresponds to heart muscle tissue was the central position of the cellular nucleus in the observed fibers, a typical characteristic of cardiac muscle fibers... The two scientists of Białystok deci-
red... "Some signs that can correspond to nodes of the contractions have been observed on the section of several fibers. Instead, during the analysis with the electronic microscopy, the outlines of the communicating junctions and the thin filaments of the myofibril were visible".
Moreover, the cardiac tissue was joined to the consecrated Host in an inseparable manner.
In the report of the examination performed by Professor Sobaniec-Łowska and Professor Sulkowski, we find written: "The material resulted was sufficient for the examination it indicates that it is cardiac muscle tissue, or at least the most similar to it among all the living tissues of an organism".
And, something very important, the material analyzed is composed in all respects of cardiac muscular tissue". This affirmation is reported in the "Communication of the Metropolitan Curia of Białystok" of October 14, 2009, concerning the Eucharistic phenomena at Sokółka.
The professors discovered also other unexplainable elements. "The
Host remained in water for a long time and it remained in the corporal for an even longer period of time.
The tissue that appeared on the Host would therefore have had to undergo the process of autolysis, namely the processes of self-destruction by the action of the intra-cellular enzymes in the material analyzed; there were not however observed traces of those alterations", the two luminaries declared.
Another very interesting event observed consists in that the substance found on the corporal, although slightly changed after being removed from the water (it had simply altered) a couple of years ago, it did not change its appearance despite having been neither stabilized nor preserved at a particular temperature.
"This signifies that if the mite we were due to a bacterium, the material would have disintegrated, crumbled and would have changed appearance. Any microbial culture, even placed on the cleanest possible material, after a single week appears completely different" added Professor Sulkowski.
"At first I was convinced that it was a blood clot" - said Professor Sobaniec-Łotowska. But the truth was much more surprising!
The two scientists of Białystok, who for their own independent investigations, made use of the most modern medical microscopes and the transmission electronic microscope, have reached the same conclusion (Professor Sulkowski, did not know that the sample which he was examining came from a Host): the sample examined was neither a clot, nor blood ... it was a human cardiac muscle tissue still alive.
And, something even more incredible, it was a cardiac muscle with typical indications of the final phase that precedes death.
The Church believes that the phenomenon which occurred was a sign of the power of the Holy Spirit, transforming the species of bread into the Body of Christ and the species of wine into His Blood. It places its trust in the findings of the witnesses of Holy Communion and to distribute the Body of Christ with faith and attention and to the faithful to receive it with reverence.
The civil authorities present at the ceremony to celebrate the Miracle of the eucharistic Host at Sokółka.
And yet, several people, who not only have never analyzed the material but they had neither seen it with their own eyes, have affirmed that the red color of the Host is due to a prodigious, a red pigment produced by the bacterium Serratia marcescens.
Obviously, this is absurd! affirmed the specialists of Białystok, also because the material observed corresponds to cardiac muscle and not to a bacterium. The scientists of Białystok have analyzed the sample taken in purely scientific terms and not religious.
Several accusations were even made absurd, like the one put forth by the group of so-called "rationalists" according to whom the tissue analyzed pertained to a murdered man.
The professors issued with a statement in which they expressed "a profound indignation for the fact that the public opinion was led in error by false pseudoscientific hypotheses on the analyzed phenomenon, above all on the part of people who ignore the particulars relative to the analysis, who have neither access to the material analyzed, nor to the documentation collected, and who often do not even know the analytical techniques applied".
The drafting of the protocol on the part of the two scientists of Białystok required two weeks. When the Curia of Białystok became aware of the incredible results of the analyses, it formed a special Ecclesiastical Commission convened by the Archbishop on March 30, 2009.
His task consisted in examining the miracle from the theological point of view and listening to all who had seen the Host on who had been witnesses of those extraordinary events.
The commission also had the task of dispelling any doubt of deception and of ascertaining that no had fraudently substituted the Host in the tabernacle.
The representatives of the commission distinguished professors of the Seminary of Białystok - interrogated all the witnesses, verifying the sincerity of their testimonies.
The work undertaken by the Ecclesiastical Commission has produced the following statement: "The Host from which the sample was taken for the examination is the same one that has been transferred from the sacristy to the tabernacle of the chapel in the sacristy. The incarnation of strangers was not observed".
This was moreover empirically excluded also by the two new scientists of Białystok. It was not possible that someone had placed a fragment of a human body in the tabernacle.
What made one think of 'The Fragment' which composed the Host were tightly interconnected to the fibres of the human tissue they interpenetrated each other, as if a fragment of 'bread' had suddenly transformed itself in 'body'. It is not possible to manipulate an event of this type.
No one absolutely no one, would have been able to do it. "Even the scientists of NASA, who have at their disposal the most modern analytical techniques, would not be able to artificially recreate such a thing", affirmed Professor Sobaniec-Łotowska, adding that this fact has been for her of particular importance.