Maximilian Kolbe

Who they were

Raymund Kolbe was born on 8 January 1894 in Zduńska Wola, in Russian-ruled Poland. In 1907 he joined the Conventual Franciscans with his elder brother, taking the name Maximilian. In 1917 he founded the Militia Immaculatae, a movement of prayer for the conversion of sinners under Our Lady's patronage, and in 1927 the friary of Niepokalanów near Warsaw. In 1931 he founded a friary outside Nagasaki in Japan.

The Gestapo closed Niepokalanów and arrested him on 17 February 1941, and in May he was sent to Auschwitz as prisoner 16670. That summer, after a prisoner escaped, ten men were picked to die in the starvation bunker. One of them, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out for his wife and children, and Kolbe stepped forward and asked to take his place. He was killed by lethal injection in the bunker on 14 August 1941. Gajowniczek survived the war and was present in Rome at both the beatification and the canonisation.

The miracles

Kolbe was beatified as a confessor, on the strength of these two cures. At the canonisation John Paul II went further and declared him a martyr, a 'martyr of charity' who gave his life for another, so no further miracle was required.

Why that counted as sanctity

The case of Angela Testoni was examined by the Church's doctors and theologians and approved as a miracle, opening the way to beatification. Beatification followed on 17 October 1971 by Paul VI. Canonisation followed on 10 October 1982 by John Paul II.