Bruno of Querfurt
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Bruno of Querfurt, O.S.B. Cam., (Template:Langx; Template:Circa 974 – 14 February or 9 March 1009), also known as Brun, was a Christian missionary bishop, Camaldolese monk and martyr, who was beheaded in Prussia, near the border of Kievan Rus and Lithuania for trying to spread Christianity. He is also called the second "Apostle of the Prussians".
Biography
Early life
Bruno was from a noble family of Querfurt (now in Saxony-Anhalt). He is rumoured to have been a relative of the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III. Through his mother Matilda, he was related to the future Bishop of Merseburg, Thietmar, with whom he studied at the cathedral school in Magdeburg, the seat of Adalbert of Magdeburg, the teacher and namesake of Adalbert of Prague.Template:Sfn While still a youth, he was made a canon of the Cathedral of Magdeburg. The fifteen-year-old Otto III made Bruno a part of his royal court. In 995, Otto III appointed Bruno as one of his court chaplains.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Despite having a clear path to a career at court and as a bishop, Bruno, perhaps influenced by the martyrdom of St. Adalbert, went to Rome and entered the monastery of St. Boniface and St. Alexius on the Aventine Hill.Template:Sfn It was then that he probably took the name Boniface, after the Anglo-Saxon missionary bishop who evangelized the Germanic tribes.Template:Sfn In 1001, Bruno entered a Benedictine monastery of Pereum, near Ravenna that Otto III had founded, and later underwent strict ascetic training under the guidance of Romuald.<ref name=Meier>Template:Catholic</ref>Template:Sfn
Missionary life
The emperor founded this monastery for the purpose of evangelising the Slavs, and Bruno soon became involved in this endeavour. In agreement with the Polish prince Bolesław Chrobry, the brothers Benedict and John were sent to Poland, where they founded a monastery in Międzyrzecz for the purpose of evangelizing the Polabian Slavs.Template:Sfn Bruno was supposed to join them, but the death of the emperor and the ensuing turmoil prevented him from traveling to Poland. He stayed in Italy studying the language and awaiting the Apostolic appointment by Pope Sylvester II.<ref name="Meier" /> In addition, the monks from Międzyrzecz were murdered on the night of November 11-12, 1003, by opponents of Prince Bolesław.Template:Sfn
In 1003, Pope Sylvester II appointed Bruno, at the age of 33, to head a mission amongst the pagan peoples of Eastern Europe. Bruno left Rome in 1004, and having been named an archbishop, was consecrated in February of that year by Archbishop Tagino of Magdeburg.<ref>Duckett, Eleanor Shipley. Death and Life in the Tenth Century, University of Michigan Press, 1967, Template:ISBN p. 193</ref> Owing to a regional conflict between the Holy Roman Emperor Henry II and Duke Boleslaus I of Poland, Bruno could not go directly to Poland so he set out for Hungary. There, he went to the places that Adalbert of Prague had attended.
Bruno tried to persuade Ahtum, the Duke of Banat, who was under the jurisdiction of Patriarchate of Constantinople to accept the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome, but this precipitated a large controversy leading to organised opposition from local monks. Bruno elected to gracefully exit the region after he first finished his book, the famous "Life of Adalbert of Prague," a literary memorial giving a history of the (relatively recent) conversion of the Hungarians.<ref name=Meier/>
After this diplomatic failure, Bruno went to Kyiv, where Grand Duke Vladimir I authorized him to make Christian converts among the Pechenegs, semi-nomadic Turkic peoples living between the Danube and the Don rivers.<ref name=Meier/> Bruno spent five months there and baptized some thirty adults. He helped to bring about a peace treaty between them and the ruler of Kyiv.
Before leaving for Poland, Bruno consecrated a bishop for the Pechenegs. While in Poland, he consecrated the first Bishop of Sweden and is said to have sent emissaries to baptise the king of Sweden,<ref>Bruno of Querfurt, baptism of king of Sweden</ref> whose mother had come from Poland. Bruno found out that his friend Benedict and four companions had been killed by robbers in 1003.<ref name=Meier/> Bruno took eyewitness accounts and wrote down a touching history of the so-called Five Martyred Brothers.<ref name=Butler>Butler, Alban. Lives of the Saints, Christian Classics, 1995</ref>
Mission to Prussia and death
In the autumn or at the end of 1008, Bruno and eighteen companions set out to found a mission among the Old Prussians; they succeeded in converting Netimer and then travelled to the east, heading very likely towards Yotvingia.
Bruno met opposition in his efforts to evangelise the borderland, and when he persisted in disregarding their warnings, he was beheaded on 14 February (or 9 or 14 March) 1009, and most of his eighteen companions were hanged by Zebeden, brother of Netimer.<ref name=Butler/> Duke Boleslaus the Brave bought the bodies and brought them to Poland. (It was supposed that they were laid to rest in Przemyśl, where some historians place Bruno's diocese; such localisation of Bruno's burial place is hardly probable because Przemyśl then belonged to Orthodox Kievan Rus through 1018.) The Annals of Magdeburg, Thietmar of Merseburg's Chronicle, the Annals of Quedlinburg, various works of Magdeburg Bishops, and many other written sources of the 11th–15th centuries record this story.
Soon after his death, Bruno and his companions were venerated as martyrs and Bruno was soon after canonised. It was said that Braunsberg was named after Bruno.<ref name=Meier/>
See also
References
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Bibliography
- A. Bumblauskas. Lithuania’s Millennium –Millennium Lithuaniae Or What Lithuania Can Tell the World on this Occasion. Lietuvos istorijos studijos, 2009, t. 23, p. 127–158.
- D. Baronas. ST BRUNO OF QUERFURT: THE MISSIONARY VOCATION. LITHUANIAN HISTORICAL STUDIES, 2009, t. 14. p. 41–52.
- Template:Cite conference
- Template:Cite book OS LG 2023-08-18.