St. Adalbert

St. Adalbert of Prague (Vojtěch) was born around 956 into a noble Bohemian family, and died a martyr on 23 April 997. Well educated and made bishop of Prague while still young, he labored to reform a Church weighed down by half-pagan customs, the slave trade, and the resistance of the nobility. Twice, discouraged by opposition, he withdrew to monastic life in Rome, and twice he was sent back to his see before finally turning to the mission fields.

A friend of the Emperor Otto III and closely linked to the rising Christian kingdom of Poland, he set out to evangelize the pagan Prussians on the Baltic coast, but was soon killed by them as an unwelcome intruder. His body was ransomed by the Polish duke Bolesław and enshrined at Gniezno, becoming a focus of the young Polish Church. He is venerated as a saint and martyr and honored as a patron of Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary.