Stanisław Papczyński
Polish Roman Catholic priest and saint
Feast: 17 September (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)
The Vatican record
- 21 January 2016 — Miracle through their intercession approved (decree list, 2016)
Who they were
Jan Papczyński was born on 18 May 1631 at Podegrodzie, near Kraków, the youngest of eight children of a family of farmers and craftsmen. He joined the Piarists, taught rhetoric, and was ordained on 12 March 1661.
He founded the Marian Clerics of the Immaculate Conception, taking the name Stanislaus of Jesus and Mary. From 1676 he and his brothers devoted themselves above all to praying for the dead, especially soldiers killed in war and victims of plague, and helped parish priests at a time when there were few. He died on 17 September 1701.
The miracles
A patient in intensive care — Diocese of Ełk, Poland — before 2012
A patient was healed of pneumococcal pneumonia in both lungs, complicated by acute respiratory distress, the failure of several organs and septic shock. On 17 September 2015 the Vatican's medical board found the healing unanimously to be very rapid, complete, lasting and scientifically inexplicable.
Why that counted as sanctity
Beatification followed on 16 September 2007. The case of a patient in intensive care was examined by the Church's doctors and theologians and approved as a miracle on 21 January 2016, opening the way to canonisation. Canonisation followed on 5 June 2016 by Francis.
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints - biography of St Stanislaus of Jesus and Mary Papczyński, with the miracle
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints — promulgated decrees (causesanti.va), summarised in our own words
- Wikidata Q731556 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
- English Wikipedia — Stanislaus Papczyński (CC BY-SA)
Checked against the sources listed on 21 September 2026. Corrections welcome.