On October 12, 2008, in St. Anthony's Church in Sokolka, the 8:30 Mass was celebrated by a young vicar, Filip Zdrodowski. During Communion, one of the priests dropped the Host. The priest didn't even notice. He was told by a woman who was kneeling when she was about to receive the Eucharist.
The priest was paralyzed with fright and thinking that it had got dirty, he put it in the vasculum, a small silver container that contains the water that priests use to wash their fingers after having given Communion.
At the end of the Holy Mass, the sacristan, Mother Julia Dubowska, took the vasculum with the Host and, for greater security, put it in another container that she then locked in the safe where the chalices were kept.
A week later, on Sunday, October 19, at about 8:00 a.m., the nun opened the safe, found the Host practically dissolved but with strange red clots.
She immediately summoned the priests to show what she had discovered. The Host had practically dissolved. Part of the Host was attached to this "strange red clot".
Then the parish priest of Sokolka contacted the Metropolitan Curia of Bialystok. Archbishop Edward Ozorowski together with the Chancellor of the Curia, the priests and the doctors examined the Host and, disconcerted, decided to wait for the events to unfold and to observe.
On October 29, the container containing the Host was taken to the parish chapel and locked in the tabernacle; the following day, at the request of the Archbishop, Father Gniedziejko placed it on a corporal. The corporal was placed in the tabernacle.
With the passage of time the Host "fused" with the corporal and the red "clot" dried up. Only then were two world-renowned scientists and specialists in pathological anatomy from Bialystok Medical University questioned.
The Metropolitan Curia of Bialystok has left this statement:
"On October 12, 2008, a consecrated Host fell from the priest's hands while giving Communion. He picked it up and placed it in a container filled with water in the tabernacle. After Mass the container containing the Host was placed in a safe in the sacristy.
2. On October 19, 2008, when the safe was opened, a red stain could be clearly seen on the fallen Host, which at first glance gave the impression that it was a blood stain.
3. On October 29, 2008, the container containing the Host was transferred to the tabernacle in the chapel of the parish house. The next day, the Host was taken out of the water in the container and placed on a corporal inside the tabernacle.
4. On January 7, 2009, the sample of the Host was extracted and examined separately by two histopathology professionals from the Medical University of Bialystok. They have left the following common statement: "The sample sent for your examination looks like myocardial tissue. In our opinion, of all the tissues of living organisms, it is the one that most resembles it.
5. The Commission noted that the host under analysis is the same as that which moved from the sacristy to the tabernacle in the chapel of the parish house. The intervention of third parties has not been detected.
The case of Sokolka does not oppose the faith of the Church, but confirms it.
"At first I was convinced it was a clot," said Dr. Sobaniec-Łotowska. However, the reality was much more surprising!
The two scientists from Bialystok, who used the most modern optical microscopes and the transmission electron microscope for their independent research, came to the same conclusion (Dr. Sulkowski did not know that the sample he was analyzing came from a Host): the sample analyzed was neither a clot nor blood... it was a human heart muscle tissue still alive. And, even more incredible, it was a heart muscle with typical indications of the extreme phase before death.
However, some people, who have not only never analyzed the material but have not even seen it with their own eyes, have claimed that the red color of the Host is due to prodigyosin, a red pigment produced by the bacterium Serratia marcescens. "Obviously this is absurd," said the Bialystok specialists, because the material analyzed corresponds to the heart muscle and not to a bacterium.
Some accusations were even more absurd, such as the one promoted by the group of so-called "rationalists" according to whom the tissue analyzed belonged to a murdered man. The doctors reacted with a statement in which they expressed "deep indignation that public opinion was misled by false pseudo-scientific hypotheses about the analyzed phenomenon, especially by people who ignore the details of the analysis, have not had access to the analyzed material or the docuмentation collected, and often do not even know the applied analysis techniques.
The drafting of the protocol by the two Bialystok scientists took two weeks. When the Bialystok Curia was informed of the incredible results of the analyses, it set in motion a special Ecclesiastical Commission convened by the Archbishop on March 30, 2009. Its task was to examine the miracle from a theological point of view and to listen to all those who had seen the Host or witnessed these extraordinary events. The commission was also in charge of dispelling any doubt of mystification and of verifying that no one had secretly substituted the Host in the Tabernacle. The representatives of the commission questioned all the witnesses and checked the veracity of their testimonies. The work carried out by the Ecclesiastical Commission gave rise to the following statement: "The Host from which the sample was taken for the expertise is the same as that from which the sacristy was transferred to the tabernacle in the chapel of the parish house. The intervention of outsiders has not been noted". This is also categorically excluded by the two scientists from Bialystok. It was not possible that someone had deposited a fragment of the human body in the tabernacle. What led you to think so? The [normal] fragments that formed the Host were intimately interconnected with the fibers of human tissue, penetrating one into the other as if a fragment of "bread" had suddenly become a "body".
It is not possible to manipulate such an event. No one, absolutely no one, would have been able to do it. "Even NASA scientists, who have the most modern analysis techniques, would not have been able to artificially recreate something like this," said Dr. Sobaniec-Łotowska, adding that this fact has been especially important to her.