Brussels massacre

"Sacrament of Miracle" redirects here. Not to be confused with Eucharistic miracle.
Brussels massacre
Ignis hostes tuos devoret. Depiction of the execution of the Jews accused of host desecration in Brussels, by Jacobus Harrewijn (circa 1720). Based on a tapestry from the Van Helmont atelier.
DateMay 22, 1370 (1370-05-22)
LocationBrussels (Duchy of Brabant)
Coordinates50°51′N 4°21′E / 50.850°N 4.350°E / 50.850; 4.350
CauseAnti-Semitism
(Alleged host desecration at the Brussels synagogue)
Casualties
6–20 Jews dead
Jewish community banished

The Brussels massacre was an anti-Semitic episode in Brussels (then within the Duchy of Brabant) in 1370 in connection with an alleged host desecration at the Brussels synagogue. A number of Jews, variously given as six[1] or about twenty,[2] were executed or otherwise killed, while the rest of the small community was banished.[1] The event occurred on May 22.[3]

The supposedly recovered hosts became objects of veneration for local Christians as the Sacrament of Miracle.[4][5] The cult survived until after the Second World War and the Holocaust, after which its antisemitic elements pushed the local church to derecognise it.[1] It was claimed that the hosts had been stabbed by Jews and had miraculously shed blood, but been otherwise unharmed.[6] The reliquary (without the hosts) is currently preserved in the cathedral's treasury (the hosts may have been present inside it as late as the year 2000).[7]

  1. ^ a b c Commission Nationale Catholique pour les Relations avec le Monde Juif. "Le Miracle du St Sacrament" (in French). Brussels Cathedral. Retrieved 20 September 2019.
  2. ^ Au nom de l'antisionisme: l'image des Juifs et d'Israël dans la ... p. 27 Joël Kotek, Dan Kotek – 2005 "Des émeutes antijuives s'ensuivent. La profanation de l'hostie, que les chrétiens identifient à la personne même du Christ, serait la répétition du crime du calvaire. En 1370, une vingtaine de Juifs sont brûlés à Bruxelles."
  3. ^ "Jewish History 1370–1379".
  4. ^ C. Caspers and T. Brekelmans, "The Power of Prayer and the Agnus Dei", in Popular religion, liturgy and evangelization, edited by Jozef Lamberts (Studies in Liturgy 15; Leuven, 1998), p. 67: "the famous Sacrament of Miracle at Brussels"
  5. ^ Religious and Theological Abstracts, vols. 26–27 (1983), p. 188: "the tendentious nature of the accusation and the legendary character of the so called Sacrament of Miracle"
  6. ^ Arblaster, Paul (2012). A History of the Low Countries. Basingstoke: Palgrave. p. 93. ISBN 978-0230293106.
  7. ^ "Résumé du rapport de la Commission d'enquête de l'ostensoir du Très-Saint Sacrement de Miracle" (PDF). June 19, 2018. Retrieved January 4, 2020.