ISTRIAN VILLAGE HOME OF EUROPE'S BEST PRESERVED MUMMIES

ZAGREB, July 21 (Hina) - If you happen to spend your summer vacation in Istria and the Kvarner coastline in the northern Adriatic you should visit the parish church in Vodnjan, a village near Pula, the home of the most preserved mummies in Europe, a thorn from Jesus' crown, splinters of the cross he was hanged on, a fragment of Virgin Mary's veil, and the cloth in which St. Simon held the baby Jesus.#L# Vodnjan, or Vicus Attinianum in Roman times, is alongside Pula's ancient amphitheatre the biggest attraction in Istria, Croatia's largest peninsula. Behind the altar of the village church, in the subdued and surreal light of crystal sarcophagi lie the mummified bodies of three saints, Leon Bembo, Giovanni Olini, and Nicolosa Bursa, as well as the remains of St. Sebastian and St. Barbara. Vodnjan's church also contains 370 relics or earthly remains of 250 saints, according to a note in the Turist Plus booklet. The aforementioned Bembo, a Venetian, died in 1188. Twenty-two years later a blind girl regained her sight at his grave. Bembo's exhumed body was completely preserved. It was placed in a wood sarcophagus painted by the renowned Paolo Veneziano. The church in Vodnjan contains Bembo's limbs. Olini, another Venetian, passed away in 1300. His body was also completely preserved. St. Bursa of Kopar died in 1512. Fourteen years later, guided by a beautiful smell, scientists opened her grave. After three days in open air, the corpse would not decompose. The grave was reopened 163 years later and the body was still completely preserved. Allegedly, 50 miraculous cures have occurred in the area. Bioenergy healers have established that Nicolosa Bursa's corpse radiates bioenergy within a 32-metre radius. Five-hundred years after her death, St. Bursa's face is said to radiate beatitude. (hina) ha