St. Boniface

St. Boniface was born Winfrid around 675 at Crediton in Wessex, England, and died a martyr on 5 June 754 at Dokkum in Frisia (in the modern Netherlands). A learned and able Benedictine monk, he gave up a promising career in England to devote himself to the conversion of the pagan Germanic peoples on the Continent, receiving a papal commission and the name Boniface for the work.

Over decades he preached across Germany, founding monasteries and dioceses, ordaining clergy, and organizing the Church there on firm foundations, for which he is honored as the 'Apostle of Germany.' In a famous act of bold faith he felled the great Oak of Thor at Geismar, sacred to the pagans, and when no thunderbolt struck him down, many were converted. Made archbishop of Mainz, he never abandoned the mission field; in his old age, while awaiting a group of converts for confirmation, he and his companions were set upon and killed by pagan raiders, and he died clutching a book of the Gospels.