Saint Florian

Saint Florian was a martyr of the persecution of Christians under the Emperor Diocletian. He died at Lauriacum, today Lorch, part of the town of Enns in Upper Austria. He is venerated as the patron of firefighters, and also of Upper Austria and of Krakow. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on May 4.

Little is known of his life. The main source is the passio, an account of his martyrdom, whose oldest version was written in the eighth century on the basis of an earlier tradition. According to it, Florian had formerly been a high official in the chancery of the governor of the Roman province of Noricum and lived in Cetium, today’s Sankt Pölten. His origins and youth remain unknown.

According to the passio, the governor Aquilinus had forty Christians imprisoned at Lauriacum. Florian went there to support them and himself confessed that he was a Christian. Because he would not deny his faith, he was beaten and then sentenced to death. The Roman Martyrology records that, by order of the governor, he was thrown from a bridge into the river Enns with a stone tied to his neck. The German edition of the Roman Missal gives May 4, 304, as the day of his death.

According to tradition, a devout woman named Valeria buried the martyr’s body. Over his burial place the Abbey of Sankt Florian near Linz later arose, today a house of the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine. At first he was invoked in dangers from water, and only in the late Middle Ages did he come to be regarded as a patron against fire. He is depicted as a Roman soldier pouring water on a burning house.

In 1184, at the request of Duke Casimir the Just and Bishop Gedko of Krakow, and with the consent of Pope Lucius III, part of his relics was brought from Rome to Krakow. They were solemnly welcomed at Kleparz and placed in Wawel Cathedral, and a church dedicated to the saint was built at Kleparz. When fire destroyed Kleparz in 1528, according to tradition only this church survived, which revived devotion to Florian in Poland. In the twentieth century the young Father Karol Wojtyła served there as a curate. In Poland May 4 is observed as Firefighters’ Day.

Florian was never canonized in a formal process. Like the other martyrs of the first centuries, he has been venerated in the Church since antiquity. In 1988, celebrating Mass in the basilica at Lorch, John Paul II asked for the intercession of Saints Severinus and Florian and called them fathers of the Church that had grown in that country.