Mysterious Lights in the Cemetery

Short Summary: St. Charbel, known as the “Miracle Monk of Lebanon,” was buried in a common grave where witnesses reported seeing mysterious lights emanating from his tomb, prompting an investigation that confirmed his body was found incorrupt during exhumation.

Details

Location: Annaya, Lebanon

Year: 1899

Prayer: nan

Verse: nan

Full Story

St. Charbel, known as the “Miracle Monk of Lebanon”, was buried in a common grave at the monastery near his hermitage. After his burial, many resident monks and neighboring peasants reported seeing “lights” in the area. This continued every night for several months. People from all over the world came to see the brilliant lights. Many witnesses saw a localized light leave the cemetery, starting from Charbel’s tomb, and move around the monastery grounds. Others said they saw colors, and sometimes starlike appearances. The locals requested an investigation of Charbel’s tomb, knowing of his holiness and suspecting him to be the cause of the phenomenon. The superior of the monastery, Fr. Mishmshany, had also seen the lights, and eventually agreed to move the saint’s body from the cemetery to the church. After this, the lights immediately ceased. Eyewitness testimonies of these events have been retained in official reports, heavily corroborated between multiple independent sources, including some statements given under oath. For one, as Brother Peter Mifouki summarized, "the body of Fr. Charbel was taken from the tomb, after a light had appeared over it. Many saw it, peasants and others. One dark and rainy night, when a Muslim administrator came with his soldiers, they saw a light over the tomb, enabling them to walk and see their way clearly. When they reached the monastery, the light disappeared.” When the coffin was exhumed, it was filled to the top with mud. The monks cleaned the mud and replaced the body’s clothes, but the body itself had not yet begun to decompose (a type of miracle known as incorruptibility). One of the monks, Sab Bou-Moussey, said they “found the body of Father Charbel exactly as we had placed it on the day of his burial”. In 1950, over 50 years after his death, physicians gave an official examination of the body, finding it perfectly flexible and lifelike. Deterioration finally took hold in the 1960s, and today only a skeleton remains.

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