Беневенттік Януарий: Католик Әулиесінің Тарихы

Bishop of Benevento; Catholic saint

Januarius (,/dʒ//æ//n//.//j//u/'/ɛər//i//ə//s/ JANyooAIReeəs; Ianuarius; Neapolitan and ), also known as Januarius I of Benevento, was Bishop of Benevento and is a martyr and saint of the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. While no contemporary sources on his life are preserved, later sources and legends claim that he died during the Great Persecution, and what follows is mostly derived from later Christian sources, such as the Acta Bononensia (BHL 4132, not earlier than 6th century) and the Acta Vaticana (BHL 4115, 9th century), and from later folk traditions.

According to various hagiographies, Januarius was born in Benevento to a rich patrician family that traced its descent to the Caudini tribe of the Samnites. At a young age of 15, he became local priest of his parish in Benevento, which at the time was relatively pagan. When Januarius was 20, he became Bishop of Naples and befriended Juliana of Nicomedia and Saint Sossius whom he met during his priestly studies. During the 1 1/2 year long persecution of Christians by Emperor Diocletian, he hid his fellow Christians and prevented them from being caught. Unfortunately, while visiting Sossius in jail, he too was arrested. He and his colleagues were condemned to be thrown to wild bears in the Flavian Amphitheater at Pozzuoli, but the sentence was changed due to fear of public disturbances, and they were instead beheaded at the Solfatara crater near Pozzuoli. refn|group=n|For further details on these locations, see the Catholic Encyclopedias article on "Saint Januarius". where it is stated that the ghosts of Januarius and Saint Martin appeared to Paulinus three days before the latter's death in 431. About Januarius, the account says only that he was "bishop as well as martyr, an illustrious member of the Neapolitan church". refn|group=n|Latin: Ianuarius, episcopus simul et martyr, Neapolitanae urbis illustrat ecclesiam. In the Eastern Church, it is celebrated on 21 April. The city of Naples has more than fifty official patron saints, although its principal patron is Saint Januarius. In the United States, the Feast of San Gennaro is also a highlight of the year for New York's Little Italy, with the saint's polychrome statue carried through the middle of a street fair stretching for blocks.

According to an early hagiography, Januarius's relics were transferred by order of Saint Severus, Bishop of Naples, to the Neapolitan catacombs "outside the walls" (extra moenia). In the early ninth century the body was moved to Beneventum by Sico, prince of Benevento, with the head remaining in Naples. Subsequently, during the turmoil at the time of Frederick Barbarossa, his body was moved again, this time to the Territorial Abbey of Montevergine where it was rediscovered in 1480. At the instigation of Cardinal Oliviero Carafa, his body was finally transferred in 1497 to Naples, where he is the city's patron saint. Carafa commissioned a richly decorated crypt, the Succorpo, beneath the cathedral to house the reunited body and head properly. The Succorpo was finished in 1506 and is considered one of the prominent monuments of the High Renaissance in the city.

Saint Januarius is famous for the annual liquefaction of his blood, which, according to legend, was saved by a woman called Eusebia just after the saint's death. A chronicle of Naples written in 1382 describes the cult of Saint Januarius in detail, but mentions neither the relic nor the miracle. The first certain date is 1389, when it was found to have melted. Then, 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. While the report of the very first incidence of liquefaction did not make any explicit reference to the skull of the saint, soon afterwards assertions began to appear that this relic was activating the melting process, as if the blood, recognizing a part of the body to which it belonged, "were impatient while waiting for its resurrection". This explanation was definitively abandoned only in the eighteenth century. Thousands of people assemble to witness this event in Naples Cathedral three times a year: on 19 September (Saint Januarius's Day, commemorating his martyrdom), on 16 December (celebrating his patronage of Naples and its archdiocese), and on the Saturday before the first Sunday of May (commemorating the reunification of his relics). The blood is also said to spontaneously liquefy at certain other times, such as papal visits. It supposedly liquefied in the presence of Pope Pius IX in 1848, but not that of John Paul II in 1979 or Benedict XVI in 2007. On March 21, 2015, Pope Francis venerated the dried blood during a visit to Naples Cathedral, saying the Lord's Prayer over it and kissing it. Archbishop Sepe then declared that "The blood has half liquefied, which shows that Saint Januarius loves our pope and Naples."

The blood is stored in two hermetically sealed small ampoules, held since the 17th century in a silver reliquary between two round glass plates about 12 cm wide. The smaller, cylindrical ampoule contains only a few reddish spots on its walls, the bulk having allegedly been removed and taken to Spain by Charles III. The larger, almond shaped ampoule, with a capacity of about 60 ml, is about 60% filled with a dark reddish substance. The liquifaction sometimes takes place almost immediately, but can take hours or even days. Records kept at the Duomo tell that on rare occasions the contents fail to liquify, are found already liquified when the ampoules are taken from the safe, or liquify outside the usual dates. A later analysis, with similar conclusions, was carried out by a team in 1989. Unreliable source: date=October 2015 However, the reliability of these observations has been questioned. However, these explanations run into technical difficulties, such as the variability of the phenomenon and its lack of correlation to ambient temperature. In such a substance viscosity increases if left unstirred and decreases if stirred or moved. Researchers have proposed specifically a suspension of hydrated iron oxide, FeO(OH), which reproduces the color and behavior of the 'blood' in the ampoule. The suspension can be prepared from simple chemicals that would have been easily available locally since antiquity. Unreliable source: date=February 2020

In 2010, Giuseppe Geraci, a professor in the Department of Molecular Biology at Naples's Frederick II University, conducted an experiment on a vial containing old blood—a relic dating back to the 18th century from the Eremo di Camaldoli near Arezzo in Tuscany—having the same characteristics of the blood of St. Januarius. Prof. Geraci showed that the Camaldoli relic also contains blood that can change its solid liquid phase by shaking. He further reproduced the phenomenon with his own blood stored in the same conditions as the Camaldoli relic. He stated that, "There is no univocal scientific fact that explains why these changes take place. It is not enough to attribute to the movement the ability to dissolve the blood, the liquid contained in the Treasure case changes state for reasons still to be identified." He ultimately argued that "there's blood, no miracle". saints from Campania and virtually nowhere else. A team of three Italian chemists managed to create a liquid that reproduces all the characteristics and behavior of the liquid in the vial, using only local materials and techniques that were known to medieval workers. Jordan Lancaster leaves open the possibility that the practice was a Christian survival of a pagan ritual intended to protect the locals from unexpected eruptions from Mount Vesuvius.

The Treasure of St Januarius is a collection of magnificent works and donations collected in seven centuries from popes, kings, emperors, famous and ordinary people. According to studies done by a pool of experts who have analyzed all the pieces in the collection, the Treasure of St Januarius is of higher value than the crown of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and the Tsar of Russia. The Treasure is a unique collection of art masterpieces, kept untouched thanks to the Deputation of the Chapel of St Januarius, an ancient secular institution founded in 1527 by a vote of the city of Naples, still existing. Today, the Treasure is exhibited in the Museum of the Treasure of St Januarius, whose entrance is located on the right side of the Dome of Naples, under the arcades. By visiting the museum, the Chapel of San Gennaro is accessible even when the cathedral is closed.