Stephen Pongracz (; 1584–1619) was a Hungarian

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

priest, martyr and

saint In Christianity, Christian belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of sanctification in Christianity, holiness, imitation of God, likeness, or closeness to God in Christianity, God. However, the use of the ...

of the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

Biography

Stephen Pongracz was born in Alvincz Castle in Principality of Transylvania, entered the

Society of Jesus The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 ...

in 1602, and studied in

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; ; ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. In a narrow, geographic sense, it roughly encompasses the territories of present-day Czechia that fall within the Elbe River's drainage basin, but historic ...

and

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

. He had been ordained for four years when he was sent to Kassa,

Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from 1000 to 1946 and was a key part of the Habsburg monarchy from 1526-1918. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the Coro ...

, (today

Košice Košice is the largest city in eastern Slovakia. It is situated on the river Hornád at the eastern reaches of the Slovak Ore Mountains, near the border with Hungary. With a population of approximately 230,000, Košice is the second-largest cit ...

, Slovakia) with fellow Jesuit

Melchior Grodziecki Melchior Grodziecki (c. 1582 – 7 September 1619) was a Silesian Jesuit priest. He is considered a martyr and saint by the Catholic Church. He was canonized in 1995 and is liturgically commemorated on 19 January. Biography He was born in Těš� ...

. The two Jesuits were working in small towns when they heard the news that a Calvinist army was marching on Kassa in an attempt to expand the territory of

Gabriel Bethlen Gabriel Bethlen (; 1580 – 15 November 1629) was Prince of Transylvania from 1613 to 1629 and Duke of Opole from 1622 to 1625. He was also King-elect of Hungary from 1620 to 1621, but he never took control of the whole kingdom. Bethlen, sup ...

, prince of Transylvania. The two Jesuits returned to Kassa where they were joined by a diocesan priest, Fr.

Marko Krizin Marko Stjepan Krizin ( 1588 – 7 September 1619), or Marko Križevčanin (, ) was a Croatian Roman Catholic priest, professor of theology and missionary, who was active in the 17th century. In the course of the struggle between Catholicis ...

. The Transylvanian army took control of the city on 5 September 1619, and immediately confined the three priests to the Jesuit residence. Before dawn on 7 September, soldiers broke into their quarters and demanded that they apostatize and accept Calvinism. When the priests refused to do so, the soldiers began to torture them and finally beheaded them. The bodies of the martyrs were recovered, after negotiations with

, and were buried in the vicinity of Kassa. In 1636, they were moved to Nagyszombat (today

Trnava Trnava (, , ; , also known by other #Names and etymology, alternative names) is a city in western Slovakia, to the northeast of Bratislava, on the Trnávka river. It is the capital of the Trnava Region and the Trnava District. It is the seat o ...

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

Veneration and canonization

The cause of beatification of the Kassa martyrs began in 1628 and they were beatified on 15 January 1905 by

Pope Pius X Pope Pius X (; born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto; 2 June 1835 – 20 August 1914) was head of the Catholic Church from 4 August 1903 to his death in August 1914. Pius X is known for vigorously opposing Modernism in the Catholic Church, modern ...

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until Death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, his death in 2005. In his you ...

canonized them on 2 July 1995 in Košice during a pastoral visit to Slovakia. Their feast day is on 7 September, the liturgical calendar of the Jesuit order has an additional feast of the Martyrs of the Reformation in Europe on 19 January.Calendar
from JesuitInstitute.org, retrieved 8 September 2020

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pongracz, Stephen Jesuit saints 17th-century Hungarian Jesuits Hungarian Roman Catholic saints Martyred Roman Catholic priests 1619 deaths 1584 births

Biography

Veneration and canonization

See also

References