Bishop,  Martyr and Patron of Poland
 

 

Stanisław Szczepanowski or Stanislaus of Szczepanów (July 26, 1030 – April 11?, 1079) was a Bishop of Kraków known chiefly for having been slain by Polish King Bolesław II the Bold. Stanisław is venerated in the Roman Catholic Church as Saint Stanislaus the Martyr
 
 
 
There is little credible information about Stanisław's life. The earliest sources are the chronicles of Gallus Anonymus and Wincenty Kadłubek, and two vitae (hagiographies) by Wincenty of Kielce. All are strongly biased and contain much legendary and hagiographic matter.

Stanislaus was born of noble parents  Wielisław and Bogna on July 26th at Szczepanow a village near the town of Bochnia in southern Poland, near Cracow. He was educated at a cathedral school in Gniezno (then Poland's capital) and later, according to different sources, in Paris or Ličge. On return to Poland, Stanisław was ordained a priest by Lambert Suła, Bishop of Kraków,  who made him his preacher, and soon he became noted for his preaching. He became a much sought after spiritual adviser. He was successful in his reforming efforts, and in 1072 was named Bishop of Cracow. He incurred the enmity of King Boleslaus the Bold when he denounced the King's cruelties and injustices and especially his kidnapping of the beautiful wife of a nobleman. When Stanislaus excommunicated the King and stopped services at the Cathedral when Boleslaus entered, Boleslaus himself killed Stanislaus while the Bishop was saying Mass in a chapel outside the city on April 11. Stanislaus has long been the symbol of Polish nationhood. Stanisław's major accomplishments included bringing papal legates to Poland, and re-establishment of a metropolitan see in Gniezno. The latter was a precondition for Duke Bolesław's coronation as king, which took place in 1076. Stanisław then encouraged King Bolesław to establish Benedictine monasteries to aid in the Christianization of Poland. He was canonized by Pope Innocent IV in 1253 and is the principle patron of Cracow. His feast day is April 11th.

 

 The conflict with King Bolesław arose after a prolonged war in Ruthenia, when weary warriors deserted home, alarmed at tidings that their overseers were taking over their estates and wives. According to Kadłubek, the King punished the soldiers' faithless wives very cruelly and was criticized for it by Bishop Stanisław. Jan Długosz, however, writes that the Bishop had in fact criticized the King for his own sexual immorality.

Whatever the actual cause of the conflict between them, the upshot was that the Bishop excommunicated King Bolesław. The excommunication aided the King's political opponents, and the King accused Bishop Stanisław of treason and had him killed.

Legend has it that King Bolesław sent his men to execute Bishop Stanisław without trial, but that when they dared not touch the Bishop, the King decided to kill the traitor himself. He is said to have slain Stanisław while he was celebrating mass in the Skałka outside the walls of Kraków. The Bishop's body was then hacked to pieces and thrown into a pool outside the church. According to the legend, his members miraculously reintegrated while the pool was guarded by four eagles.

The exact date of Stanisław's death is uncertain. According to different sources, it was either April 11 or May 8, 1079.

The murder stirred outrage through the land and led to the dethronement of King Bolesław II the Bold, who had to seek refuge in Hungary and was succeeded by his brother, Władysław I Herman.

Whether Stanisław should be regarded a traitor or a hero, remains one of the classic unresolved questions of Polish history. Stanisław's story has a parallel in the murder, nine decades later, in 1170, of Thomas Becket by henchmen of England's King Henry II.

Saint Stanislas' relics

The martyrdom of Stanislas Szczepanow, which mirrors that of the English bishop, Thomas A’Beckett, gave rise to a powerful cult. This gathered such a momentum that Stanislas became not only the patron saint of Cracow, but of Poland herself. An echo of this reverberates today in the historic procession from Wawel to the Church on the Rock. Indeed, the tomb of St.Stanislas has held pride of place in the Cathedral since 1362, and kings were crowned at its foot. The tale struck a resounding chord, and as a symbol of a man of the people who stood up against tyranny, its message continues to echo. During the communist era the saint was regularly invoked by the Church, most memorably when Pope John Paul II held aloft his relics before a crowd of one million people at Cracow in June 1979.

 

The cult of St. Stanislaus

The cult of Saint Stanisław the martyr began immediately upon his death. In 1088 his relics were moved to Kraków's Wawel Cathedral. In the early 13th century, Bishop Iwo Odrowąż initiated preparations for Stanisław's canonization and ordered Wincenty of Kielce to write the martyr's vita. On September 17, 1253, at Assisi, Stanisław was canonized by Pope Innocent IV.

Subsequently Pope Clement VIII set the Saint's feast day for May 7 throughout the Roman Catholic Church, though Kraków observes it May 8, the supposed date of the Saint's death. The first feast of Saint Stanisław in Kraków was celebrated May 8, 1254, and was attended by many Polish bishops and princes.

As the first native Polish saint, Stanisław is the patron of Poland and Kraków, and of some Polish dioceses. He shares the patronage of Poland with Saint Adalbert of Prague and Our Lady the Queen of Poland.

Wawel Cathedral, which holds the Saint's relics, became a principal national shrine. Almost all the Polish kings beginning with Władysław I the Elbow-high were crowned while kneeling before Stanisław's sarcophagus, which stands in the middle of the cathedral. In the 17th century, King Władysław IV Vasa commissioned an ornate silver coffin to hold the Saint's relics. It was destroyed by Swedish troops during The Deluge, but was replaced with a new one ca. 1670.

Saint Stanisław's veneration has had great patriotic importance. In the period of Poland's feudal fragmentation, it was believed that Poland would one day reintegrate as had the members of Saint Stanisław's body. Half a millennium after Poland had indeed reintegrated, and while yet another dismemberment of the polity was underway in the Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the framers of the Polish Constitution of May 3, 1791, would dedicate this progressive political document to Saint Stanisław Szczepanowski, whose feast day fell close to the date of the Constitution's adoption.

Each year on May 8, a procession, led by the Bishop of Kraków, goes out from Wawel to the Church on the Rock. The procession, once a local event, was popularized in the 20th century by Polish Primate Stefan Wyszyński and Archbishop of Kraków, Karol Wojtyła. The latter, as Pope John Paul II, called Saint Stanisław the patron saint of moral order.

Roman Catholic churches belonging to Polish communities outside Poland are often dedicated to Saint Stanisław.

In iconography, Saint Stanisław is usually depicted as a bishop holding a sword, the instrument of his martyrdom, and sometimes with Piotr rising from the dead at his feet.

 

Skałka, means "a small rock" in Polish, is a small hillock in Kraków where the Bishop of Krakow saint Stanislaus of Szczepanów was slain by order of Polish king Bolesław II the Bold in 1079.  A Romanesque church was built there, and became one of the most famous polish sanctuaries.

King Casimir III raised a new gothic church and since 1472 this shrine has been in the possession of a cloister of Pauline Fathers. In 1733-1751 the church received a baroque costume. The crypt underneath the church serves as a "national Pantheon", a burial place for some of the most distinguished Poles, paricularly those who lived in Kraków.                 Skalka is Poland's second holiest pilgrimage site after Jasna Gora. Saint Stanislas' relics were carried from the Skalka sanctuary and church to the Wawel Cathedral and back in the Penitential Procession, in honor of St. Stanislas. The Penitential Procession itself is a huge enterprise that we "westerners" normally do not see. Practically the whole town participates in the ceremony: you have 60 to 80,000 spectators alongside the streets, at least 2,000 people participated in the procession including four (4) or five (5) cardinals, about fifteen (15) bishops, and two (2) large rows of professors from the local universities.

 

Sigismund Chapel


The gold-plated dome of the Sigismund Chapel crowns the best example of Renaissance art and architecture with no match without Italy and few equals within. The Wawel Cathedral, Poland's national sanctuary with 1000-year-old history, was the coronation site of Polish monarchs.

The center of the Wawel Cathedral's nave is occupied by the 1630 mausoleum of St. Stanislav, Poland's saint patron, the 11th-century Krakow bishop murdered by King Boleslav II (1058–1079). The martyr’s silver coffin (circa 1670) is adorned with 12 relief scenes from his life and posthumous miracles. Marble tombs of four 17th-century Krakow prelates accompany their saint predecessor's chapel-mausoleum.