Legnica

Legnica is a town of about 100,000 people in Lower Silesia. It was German until 1945. Weekly Mass attendance in the diocese in 2016 was reported at 29.9 per cent, below the Polish average of 39.1, so it is a less churchgoing part of the country.

The church was finished in 1908 as a Protestant church, a memorial to Kaiser Friedrich. It is said that Red Army soldiers used it as a stable after they took the town in February 1945. The priest named to serve it in 1968, Fr Tadeusz Kisiński, became parish priest in 1972 and retired in 1997. The Diocese of Legnica was founded in 1992.

These are recent events, and the bishop's statement is the main witness. It was written over two years after the event. Small details vary between reports, as noted.

The statement describes the fall of the Host, the red marks, the commission and the samples. It then quotes the final report of the Department of Forensic Medicine. In a histopathological image, fragments of tissue were found with pieces of striated muscle. The whole picture is "most similar to the heart muscle", with changes that "often appear during the agony". Genetic research "indicates the human origin of the tissue".

The bishop then gives instructions. The parish priest is to:

• prepare a suitable place to show the relic for veneration;
• give information about it to those who come;
• give regular teaching on Eucharistic worship;
• start a book to record graces received and other such events.

The bishop asks for prayer. He speaks of an event with the signs of a miracle, and not of a defined miracle. The shrine's own page calls it both a "Eucharistic event" and a "Eucharistic miracle".

This is the point most often overstated. Here is what each source actually says, in date order.

Some other reports say that Rome recognised a supernatural event, or that the bishop officially declared a miracle. No published document that says so could be found. The safest statement is this. The bishop acted, saying he did so on the Holy See's recommendation, and veneration is allowed. Whether Rome has given a final judgment on the event itself cannot be confirmed from anything public.

The commission first went to the Department of Forensic Medicine of the Medical University of Wrocław, in January 2014 according to Niedziela. Reports of the result differ:

• Niedziela (2026) and the National Catholic Register (2016) say that fungal and bacterial origin were excluded.
• WP and Radio Wrocław (2016) say that Wrocław was unsure of the cause of the colour, or did not find human origin, and so the material went elsewhere.
• Prof. Tadeusz Dobosz, who took part, said in a 2016 interview that his own genetic tests found no human DNA, and that any such trace would likely come from handling. He said the parish priest sought a second opinion because he found the Wrocław results unsatisfactory.
• Dr Barbara Engel, a cardiologist on the commission, said that some images showed fibres resembling heart muscle. By 2016 she was calling it a miracle that secular terms cannot explain.

The material went on to the Department of Forensic Medicine of the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin. The names of those who signed have not been made public, as far as could be found. WP reports the use of ultraviolet light. It says they judged the fibres very like heart muscle and the tissue around them connective tissue, and that the fragmentation may point to a moment of agony.

The final report is the one the bishop quotes (see above). It says "most similar", not "is". Reports of the genetic test differ too. The book of 2017 speaks of mitochondrial human DNA. The Catholic News Agency in 2020 quotes the parish priest that a fragment of DNA sequence was found, and that saying whose it is would need more work. Blood group was not tested, as the claim is of heart tissue and not of blood.

• Martyna Franczuk, a biotechnologist at the Medical University of Gdańsk, said in 2016 that Serratia marcescens is the most likely cause, as flour and water are good ground for it. She found it hard to believe that an experienced pathologist would confuse bacteria with the much larger human cells. She asked the curia for details and, at the time of the report, had no answer.
• Prof. Dobosz, as above, holds that the human DNA was contamination.
• Mark Woods, writing in Christian Today in 2016, thought fraud or honest mistake more likely than a miracle. He accused no one in particular.
• The 2025 study. Tomasz Grzybowski, Prof. Dobosz and colleagues (Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology) tested 25 cases from Poland, Germany, the United States and South Africa, all ordered by Church officials. They do not name the cases, so we cannot say if Legnica is among them. They found no proof of human blood, and no human material beyond single skin cells and blood cells, likely stray contamination. In most cases the structures were fungi and microbes of decay. They cite the Legnica book as an example of partial results spread in a popular form, and they say procedures were skipped or results ignored in some public cases, leading to hasty conclusions.
• Fairness to the other side. The same paper says that in two cases it could not explain structures resembling heart muscle. It finds Serratia in only two cases, and calls the easy line "There are no miracles, there are Serratia marcescens" an unproven belief. The authors say the decision about any sign belongs to the Church's authorities.
• Dr Maciej Krzywosz, a scholar of miracle claims at the University of Białystok, notes that the Church examines miracles in detail mainly in causes of saints, and leaves events like this to local bishops. He says that recognition may take a very long time, and pilgrimage has religious meaning either way.
• Sociologists. Anna Królikowska and Tomasz Kalniuk have written on Sokółka and Legnica as new sacred places in a secularising Poland, without judging what happened.