Saints Benedict, John, Matthew, Isaac and Christian

Saints Benedict, John, Matthew, Isaac and Christian, known as the Five Martyr Brothers, were hermits who in the time of Bolesław the Brave were preparing a mission among the pagans in Poland. In November 1003 they were killed by robbers. The Church in Poland venerates them as her first martyrs. The Roman Martyrology commemorates them on November 12, while in Poland their memorial falls on November 13.

Benedict came from Benevento in Italy. He was ordained a priest while young, then became a monk, and finally a hermit. Together with John he was among the disciples of Saint Romuald and belonged to his community at Pereum near Ravenna. Saint Bruno of Querfurt, a friend of Benedict, was also a monk at Pereum, and a few years after the death of the brothers he wrote down their story.

Emperor Otto III passed on to Romuald the request of Bolesław the Brave for missionaries who would take up the work interrupted by the death of Saint Adalbert. In 1001 Benedict and John set out from Ravenna across the Alps. Bolesław received them kindly and built them a hermitage in a place they chose themselves. They were joined by three Slavs: the novices Matthew and Isaac, and Christian, the community’s cook. The Italian monks learned the local language and waited for Bruno, who was to bring from Rome the pope’s permission for the mission.

Bruno, however, did not come. After the death of Otto III in January 1002, war broke out between Bolesław and the German king Henry II. The duke gave the hermits ten pounds of silver for a journey to Rome, but when the journey proved impossible, Benedict sent the money back.

On the night of November 10 to 11, 1003, armed men attacked the hermitage, convinced that the silver was still there. According to Bruno, John, who spoke with the attackers, was the first to die by the sword, and Benedict after him. Before he died, Isaac blessed his killers. Matthew, pierced by spears, fell near the church. Christian, as Bruno writes, defended himself with a piece of wood, while the Roman Martyrology states that he was hanged in the courtyard of the little church. The robbers did not find the money.

The slain were buried by Unger, the bishop of Poznań. Bruno writes that the pope, when he was told of their death, ordered that they be venerated as holy martyrs. The pope at that time was John XVIII. The brothers’ relics were moved to Gniezno, and from there, in the late 1030s, the Bohemian duke Bretislaus carried them off to Prague. In the sixteenth century some of them came to Kazimierz Biskupi.

Where the hermitage stood is not known, because the oldest sources do not name the place. Since the Middle Ages Kazimierz Biskupi near Konin has been pointed to, and the Roman Martyrology repeats that name. Today historians most often favor Międzyrzecz or its surroundings. In 1997, in Gorzów Wielkopolski, Saint John Paul II called the martyrs the most ancient witnesses to Christ on Polish soil, alongside Saint Adalbert.