Saint Blaise

Saint Blaise was bishop of Sebaste in Armenia and a martyr of the early fourth century. For centuries the faithful have asked his intercession in illnesses of the throat. The Church commemorates him on February 3.

Very little is known about him for certain. The Roman Martyrology says only that he suffered for the Christian name at Sebaste under the emperor Licinius; it is generally held that he died around 316. Sebaste is today’s Sivas in Turkey. It is not known when or where he was born. The accounts of his life and passion are late and legendary in character, so what they tell must be taken as tradition.

According to this tradition, Blaise was a physician before he became a bishop. When the persecution began, he took refuge in a mountain cave. Wild animals are said to have come to him for healing and a blessing. There the governor’s hunters found him and brought him before the governor’s court.

The legend connects two stories with his imprisonment, and they shaped the saint’s cult. The first tells of a boy who was choking because a fishbone had stuck in his throat; his mother brought him to the bishop, who healed him. The second tells of a poor woman whose pig had been carried off by a wolf. At Blaise’s word the wolf gave it back unharmed, and the grateful woman later brought food and candles to the prisoner. The bishop did not renounce Christ. Tradition says that his flesh was torn with iron combs and that in the end he was beheaded.

Devotion to Blaise passed from the East to the West; in Western martyrologies his name appears in the ninth century. In the Middle Ages he was among the best-known saints. Many churches were dedicated to him, and relics attributed to him were venerated in Dubrovnik, in Maratea in southern Italy, and in the Abbey of St. Blasien in the Black Forest, among other places. In the German lands he was counted among the Fourteen Holy Helpers. He is the patron of Dubrovnik and also of wool combers, because the iron combs in the story of his passion resemble their tool.

On the day of his memorial the blessing of Saint Blaise is given in many churches. The priest holds two crossed candles at the person’s throat and asks that, through the saint’s intercession, God may preserve him or her from illness of the throat and from every other evil. In some parts of Poland small candles called “błażejki” were blessed on this day, in others apples, which were given to those suffering from a sore throat.

Blaise has been venerated as a saint since early centuries, long before the canonization process existed. In the Roman Calendar his day is an optional memorial, and the Eastern Churches keep his memory on February 11. The prayer of the Mass on this day asks that, through the martyr’s intercession, God’s people may rejoice in peace in this present life and find help for life eternal.