Saint Charbel's Tomb and Incorrupt Body

Saint Charbel died on the night of December 24, 1898, eight days after being struck down during Mass - the story is on our last days page and the full life on the history page. He was buried in the monastery cemetery at Annaya, in the simple grave of a monk, in the depth of the Lebanese winter.

On the night after the burial, villagers in houses across from the monastery reported a strange glow rising and falling over his grave. The account collected in the tradition gives names: the peasant George Emmanuel saw "an extraordinary glow" over the cemetery; the widow Milade Chehade said she saw it three times and that the monastery's Superior came and saw it himself. The phenomenon was reported for forty-five nights - and it was one reason the Church authorities ordered the tomb opened. These are witness accounts preserved in the tradition, and we report them as such.

The tomb was first opened on April 15, 1899, three months after the burial, before the monastery's Superior, monks, and lay witnesses. Their recorded testimony: rainwater had flooded the grave and the body lay in the mud - yet it was tender, fresh, and supple, the limbs flexible, "like those of a sleeping man," and bright red blood mixed with water flowed from his side. Placed in a glass-topped coffin, the body lay in a monastery oratory for twenty-seven years as crowds filed past.

On July 24, 1927, with the cause for beatification opened in Rome, the body was reburied in a walled tomb in the crypt, vested as a priest, with a medical report and the commission's documents sealed in a metal cylinder inside the coffin.

In the Holy Year 1950 a viscous liquid was seen beading on the tomb wall. The tomb was opened on February 25, 1950 - found dry and in perfect condition - and the coffin itself opened on April 22 before religious and civil authorities and a committee of doctors: the sweat of blood and water still impregnated the vestments, and the body kept its suppleness.

The strangest detail in the record is the perspiration: beads of fluid, described as blood mixed with water, exuding from the body long after death - so that, the account says, the monks had to change his habit twice a week. Two Lebanese physicians left testimony. Dr. Elias Elonaissi described pores giving passage to "a matter not unlike sweat... strange and inexplicable according to the laws of nature." Dr. George Choukralah, who examined the body thirty-four times over seventeen years, concluded: "My personal opinion, based upon study and experience, is that the body is conserved by a supernatural power."

We quote the doctors; we do not add to them. The tradition calls these events miracles; this site records them as the documented testimony on which that devotion rests. When the grave was opened again in 1976, only the skeleton remained - the body had, at last, fully returned to the earth.

Today the tomb rests in the monastery of Saint Maron at Annaya, beneath the church, and pilgrims pass it in their hundreds of thousands every year - Christians, Muslims, Druze, everyone. On December 1, 2025, Pope Leo XIV knelt there in prayer - the first pope ever to visit - and entrusted Lebanon, the Church, and the world to Saint Charbel's intercession. The full account is on our papal visit page.

The tomb is inside the monastery at Annaya, about an hour and a quarter from Beirut, and open to pilgrims daily. The full practical guide - the drive, what to see in what order, the hermitage above, the holy oil, Mass times, and the 22nd of the month - is on our pilgrim's guide to Annaya.

Is Saint Charbel's body still incorrupt?

No. The body remained remarkably preserved through the exhumations of 1899, 1927, 1950 and 1952, and the postulator certified it intact in 1965 - but when the grave was opened in 1976, only the skeleton remained.

When was Saint Charbel's tomb opened?

The documented openings: April 15, 1899 (three months after burial), July 24, 1927 (reburial in the crypt), February-April 1950 (tomb and coffin opened before doctors), and an exposition in August 1952. The grave was opened again in 1976, finding the skeleton.

What was the liquid on Saint Charbel's body?

Witnesses and physicians described a perspiration of blood mixed with water exuding from the body for decades after death. The doctors quoted in the record said they could not explain it by the laws of nature; the tradition receives it as miraculous. We report their words as recorded.

Where exactly is Saint Charbel buried?

In the monastery of Saint Maron at Annaya, in the Batroun district of North Lebanon - first in the monastery cemetery, then, since 1927, in a walled tomb in the crypt beneath the church, where pilgrims visit today.

Did a pope visit Saint Charbel's tomb?

Yes. On December 1, 2025, Pope Leo XIV prayed at the tomb in Annaya - the first papal visit in history - during his apostolic journey to Lebanon.

• Catholic Tradition (Afterlife, Part 7): the exhumations of 1899, 1927, 1950 and 1952, the lights, and the physicians' testimony
• Vatican State, Saint of the Day: Saint Charbel Makhlouf - death, the phenomena at the tomb, beatification 1965, canonization 1977
• Holy See: Pope Leo XIV's prayer at the tomb of Saint Charbel, December 1, 2025