A Chronicle of the Real Presence

The Eucharistic
Miracles

From a hillside chapel in the eighth century to a parish sacristy in 2013 — an index of the times the Church has looked closely at a consecrated Host, some found worthy of belief, and some, honestly, not.

Begin the chronicle ↓
—Approved & venerated
—Examined, not approved
—Countries
—Centuries spanned
—Earliest account

A Eucharistic miracle, in the Church's careful language, is an event in which the consecrated Host or Precious Blood is reported to depart from its ordinary appearance — becoming visibly flesh, or blood, or remaining incorrupt for centuries — as a sign of Christ's abiding presence. Most of the accounts below were examined by a local bishop or a diocesan tribunal at the time; a handful have been studied since with forensic pathology. None of them is an article of faith. The Church has never required a Catholic to believe in any single one — only in the Real Presence itself, which these stories exist to illustrate, not to prove. This chronicle also includes the claims the Church looked at and did not uphold — a laboratory finding of mold or bacteria, a bishop's negative judgment, or, in a number of medieval cases, a legend that turned out to be a fabricated accusation against a local Jewish community, used to justify a pogrom or expulsion. Use the filter below to see either side of the record.