page_title: Adalbert of Prague
section_title: Veneration and Relics
hierarchical_section_title: Adalbert of Prague / Veneration and Relics
caption_attribution_description: Adalbert of Prague. Part of Wenceslas Monument on the Wenceslas Square in Prague. National Museum in the background.
context_page_description: Adalbert of Prague, known in Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia by his birth name Vojtěch, was a Bohemian missionary and Christian saint. He was the Bishop of Prague and a missionary to the Hungarians, Poles, and Prussians, who was martyred in his efforts to convert the Baltic Prussians to Christianity. He is said to be the composer of the oldest Czech hymn Hospodine, pomiluj ny and Bogurodzica, the oldest known Polish hymn, but his authorship of it has not been confirmed.
  St. Adalbert was later declared the patron saint of the Czech Republic, Poland and the Duchy of Prussia. He is also the patron saint of the Archdiocese of Esztergom in Hungary.
context_section_description: A few years after his martyrdom, Adalbert was canonized as St. Adalbert of Prague. His life was written in Vita Sancti Adalberti Pragensis by various authors, the earliest being traced to imperial Aachen and the Bishop of Liège, Notger von Lüttich, although it was previously assumed that the Roman monk John Canaparius wrote the first Vita in 999. Another famous biographer of St. Adalbert was St. Bruno of Querfurt who wrote a hagiography of him in 1001–4.
  Notably, the Přemyslid rulers of Bohemia initially refused to ransom St. Adalbert's body from the Prussians who murdered him, and therefore it was purchased by Poles. This fact may be explained by the saint's belonging to the Slavniks family which was rival to the Přemyslids. Thus St. Adalbert's bones were preserved in Gniezno, which assisted Boleslaus I of Poland in increasing Polish political and diplomatic power in Europe.
  According to Bohemian accounts, in 1039 the Bohemian Duke Břetislav I looted the bones of St. Adalbert from Gniezno in a raid and translated them to Prague. According to Polish accounts, however, he stole the wrong relics, namely those of St. Gaudentius, while the Poles concealed St. Adalbert's relics which remain in Gniezno. In 1127 his severed head, which was not in the original purchase according to Roczniki Polskie, was discovered and translated to Gniezno. In 1928, one of the arms of St. Adalbert, which Bolesław I had given to Holy Roman Emperor Otto III in 1000, was added to the bones preserved in Gniezno. Therefore, today St. Adalbert has two elaborate shrines in the Prague Cathedral and Royal Cathedral of Gniezno, each of which claims to possess his relics, but which of these bones are his authentic relics is unknown. For example, pursuant to both claims the Saint has two skulls. The one in Gniezno was stolen in 1923.
  The massive bronze doors of Gniezno Cathedral, dating from around 1175, are decorated with eighteen reliefs of scenes from the Saint's life. They are the only Romanesque ecclesiastical doors in Europe depicting a cycle illustrating the life of a saint, and therefore are a precious relic documenting Adalbert's martyrdom. We can read that door literally and theologically.
  The one thousandth anniversary of St. Adalbert's martyrdom was on 23 April 1997. It was commemorated in Poland, Czech Republic, Germany, Russia, and other nations. Representatives of Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Evangelical churches traveled on a pilgrimage to the Saint's tomb located in Gniezno. Pope John Paul II visited the cathedral and celebrated a liturgy there in which heads of seven European nations and approximately one million faithful participated.
  A ten-meter cross was erected near the village of Beregovoe (formerly Tenkitten), Kaliningrad Oblast, where St. Adalbert is thought to have been martyred by the Prussians.
caption: Statue of Saint Adalbert at Prague
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "Part of Wenceslas Monument on the Wenceslas Square in Prague. National Museum in the background.", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2006:02:01 00:53:53", "Image Artist": "Arkadiy Etumyan", "Image Copyright": "\u00a9 2006 - Arkadiy Etumyan", "Image ExifOffset": "340", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "478", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5663", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "503", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "754"}