Stanislaus of Szczepanów

Who they were

Stanislaus studied at Gniezno and then canon law and theology in Paris, refusing the doctorate out of humility. Ordained priest in Kraków Cathedral, he became the bishop's right hand, known for an austere life of penance and Scripture. In 1072 Pope Alexander II made him bishop of Kraków. He kept a list of the sick and poor so as to forget none, opened his house to anyone in need, visited his parishes constantly and demanded a holy life of his priests.

He publicly rebuked King Boleslaw II, a brave soldier but a tyrant in private, and when the king abducted a nobleman's wife threatened him with excommunication. Finally excommunicating him, he celebrated Mass outside the city in the church of St Michael, where the king himself, when his guards would not, killed him with the sword and had his body cut to pieces and scattered. The faithful gathered it.

The miracles

The Vatican News account records the tradition that, when the king's party accused him of never paying for a piece of land, Stanislaus raised the dead seller, Peter, to testify for him. The miracles examined for his canonisation at Assisi in 1253 are not described in the sources we have used.

Why that counted as sanctity

Stanislaus was a true shepherd to the poor and would not be silent before a king's crimes. He told Boleslaw that royal dignity is to episcopal as the moon to the sun, and he died at the altar for defending God's law.

Connected on this site

• Stanislaus Kostka Saint
  “Stanislaus is venerated in the Catholic Church as Stanislaus the Martyr (as distinct from the 16th-century Jesuit, Stanislaus Kostka).” — Wikipedia
• Stanisław Kazimierczyk Saint
  “He became noted for his ardent devotions to both the Eucharist and to his personal patron saint, Stanislaus of Szczepanów, as well as for his charitable dedication to the ill and poor of Kraków.” — Wikipedia