Adalbert of Prague, Saint’s Day of St. (April 23)

Adalbert of Prague (c. 956–997), a martyr from the era prior to the establishment of Christian dominance of eastern Europe, was born into a Czech noble family. He received a good education, including a decade under an outstanding scholar of his day, Archbishop Adalbert of Magdeburg (d. 981 CE). When his teacher died, the student took his mentor’s name.

The young Adalbert returned home, was ordained, and, in 892, was named bishop of Prague. He left his life of relative wealth and lived an austere existence, which provided the base from which he could call for reform and the discontinuance of preChristian practices, including polygamy and slavery. After seven years, he resigned his post and went to Rome to live as a hermit. His rest was short, however, as in 993, Pope John XV (r. 985–996) called him fromhis retirement and sent him back to Prague to resume his episcopal office. Upon his return, he became involved with the quarrels among the royal families, which in 995 led tomost of his brothers being killed. He publicly condemned those who killed his family members and was forced to flee to Hungary. While there, he baptized Geza, the grand prince who ruled the Hungarians, and his son Stephen. Geza would begin the process of Christianizing Hungary, which Stephen would largely complete and in the process be recognized as a saint himself.

Adalbert subsequently went to Poland, where the king provided him resources for his next mission, to convert neighboring Prussia. Near Gdansk, he ran into a problem. Following a common practice of Christian missionaries, he chopped down a couple of oak trees. Many Pagans believed the trees to house spirits who should not be angered. Christians cut the trees in a demonstration of the powerlessness of such imagined spirits. In this case, it was not the spirits to be feared, but the believers, who had Adalbert arrested, and in April 997, he was executed for his crime.

To the Pagans, he was just a criminal. To the Christian king who had sponsored his mission, he was a saintly martyr. The king paid a high price to recover Adalbert’s body.
Adalbert’s body, minus its head, was placed in the church at Gniezno. He was quickly considered and named a saint. A generation later, some nobles from Bohemia came to Gniezno and stole a body, which they believed to be Adalbert’s. The Poles later said that they took the wrong body. They also claimed that in 1128, they recovered Adalbert’s head and reunited it with the rest of his relics. Today, both cathedrals at Prague and Gniezno have a shrine that they claim holds Adalbert’s bones. The Gniezno cathedral has another unique feature, large doors with reliefs that tell the story of Adalbert’s life.

In April 1997, the 1,000th anniversary of Saint Adalbert’s martyrdom was widely commemorated in the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, and Russia. In the midst of the celebrations, Pope John Paul II (r. 1978–2005) led a worship service at Gneizno attended by a number of heads of state and an estimated million believers.
Adalbert has been named a patron saint of Poland, Hungary, Bohemia (the Czech Republic), and Prussia.

References
Attwater, Donald, and Catherine Rachel John. The Penguin Dictionary of Saints. New York: Penguin Books, 1993. Petiska, Eduard. The Lives of St. Wenceslas, St. Ludmila and St. Adalbert. New York: Martin, 1994. Starr, Eliza Allen. Patron Saints. Baltimore: John B. Piet & Co., 1883.

Adalbert of Prague, Saint’s Day of St. (April 23) 2019-11-05T02:06:00-08:00 Rating: 4.5 Diposkan Oleh: mc