Saint Adalbert of Prague

He was born to a noble Bohemian family in 956 and his name was Wojtech. ¹² He studied at Magdeburg under Archbishop Adalbert and "assumed the name" of his teacher. ¹ It is a small thing and it is the first of several times he gave up something of his own.

He was chosen bishop of Prague at twenty-seven. ² Eight years later, "those who resisted his program of clerical reform forced him into exile." ² The encyclopedia says the same in its own register: he was "obliged to flee on account of the enmity he had aroused by his efforts to reform the clergy of his diocese." ¹

What he did next is the part worth noticing. He went to Rome, and "when released by Pope John XV from his episcopal obligations, withdrew to a monastery and occupied himself in the most humble duties of the house." ¹ He did not lobby to be reinstated. He asked to stop being a bishop and went to sweep floors.

His own people asked for him back, and "received him with great demonstrations of joy". ¹ It did not last: "he was nevertheless expelled a second time and returned to Rome." ¹

The encyclopedia does not say why. Franciscan Media does, and it is worth having: he was exiled again "after excommunicating those who violated the right of sanctuary by dragging a woman accused of adultery from a church and murdering her." ²

That is a different kind of story from the first exile. The first was about clerical discipline and could be read as a reformer being tactless. The second was a lynching, and he excommunicated the men who did it, and the city removed him for it.

The Hungarians "were just then turning towards Christianity", and Adalbert went among them as a missionary and "probably baptized King Geysa and his family, and King Stephen." ¹ That Stephen is Saint Stephen of Hungary.

He then evangelized the Poles and was made Archbishop of Gnesen - "but he again relinquished his see", the second time he handed back a bishopric, and went to preach to the pagan inhabitants of what the article calls the Kingdom of Prussia. ¹

The encyclopedia is candid about how it ended, and not flattering: "Success attended his efforts at first, but his imperious manner in commanding them to abandon paganism irritated them, and at the instigation of one of the pagan priests he was killed." ¹ Franciscan Media says he and two companions were martyred. ² The year was 997.

Boleslas I of Poland "is said to have ransomed his body for an equivalent weight of gold." ¹ It was buried in the cathedral at Gniezno, and in the mid-eleventh century the relics were moved to Saint Vitus Cathedral in Prague - the city that had thrown him out twice. ²

He is also thought to be the author of the "Boga-Rodzica", the war-song the Poles sang going into battle. ¹

He is called the Apostle of Prussia, and belongs to Bohemia, Poland and Hungary. ¹ Franciscan Media notes that he "is now remembered with great honor in the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, and Germany" - four countries, none of which could keep him while he was alive. ²

He belongs particularly to anyone rejected by the people they were sent to serve, and to those who keep going somewhere else afterward.

The feast of Saint Adalbert of Prague is April 23, the day he was killed in 997. ¹² The encyclopedia states it plainly - "His feast is celebrated 23 April" - and Franciscan Media agrees: "His liturgical feast is celebrated on April 23." ¹²

Franciscan Media runs its column on him a day earlier, on April 22, which is a publishing slot rather than the feast.

Twice his own diocese removed him, and the second time it was for defending a woman who had already been murdered. ² There is no version of that story in which he was wrong and no version in which he won.

What he did between the exiles is the part most people skip. He asked the pope to release him from being a bishop, and went and did the humblest work in a monastery. ¹ Not as a protest, and not while waiting. He had been given a job, he had been prevented from doing it, and rather than fight for the title he put it down.

Then he did it again in Poland - made archbishop of Gnesen, and "he again relinquished his see" to go preach to people who had no interest in him. ¹ Twice a bishop, twice not a bishop, by his own hand the second time each way.

And the encyclopedia will not give him a clean death. His "imperious manner" irritated the Prussians and one of their priests had him killed. ¹ The same trait that made him unbearable to his clergy in Prague made him unbearable on the Baltic, and it is written into his entry in a Catholic reference work. He is a saint with an acknowledged flaw that contributed to his own martyrdom, which is more useful than a saint without one.