Saint Boniface

For other uses, see Saint Boniface (disambiguation).

{| border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" align="right" width="300" style="margin-left:1.0em;" Saint Boniface of Mainz or Fulda Bishop and Martyr Born c.672, Crediton,Devonshire Died June 5 754, Friesland, The Netherlands Major shrine Fulda Feast June 5 Attributes ax, book; fountain; fox; oak; raven; scourge; sword Patronage brewers; file cutters; Fulda, Germany; tailors; World Youth Day A short hymn or prayer
In her voyage across the ocean of this world, the Church is like a great ship being pounded by the waves of life's different stresses. Our duty is not to abandons ship but to keep her on her course.

Let us stand fast in what is right, and prepare our souls for trial. Let us wait upon God's strengthening aid and say to him: "O Lord, you have been our refuge in all generations."

Let us trust in him who has placed this burden upon us. What we ourselves cannot bear let us bear with the help of Christ. For he is all-powerful, and he tells us: "My yoke is easy, and my burden light."

Let us continue the fight on the day of the Lord. The days of anguish and of tribulation have overtaken us; if God so wills, "let us die for the holy laws of our fathers," so that we may deserve to obtain an eternal inheritance with them.
Saint Boniface

Saint Boniface (Latin: Bonifacius; German: Bonifatius; c. 672 - 5 June 754), the Apostle of the Germans, born Winfrid or Wynfrith at Crediton in Devon, England, was a missionary who propagated Christianity in the Frankish Empire during the 8th century.

He was murdered in Frisia.

Early life

Born at Crediton, Devon . He was of good family, and it was somewhat against his father's wishes that he devoted himself at an early age to the monastic life. He received his theological training in the Benedictine monasteries of Adescancastre, near Exeter and Nursling between Winchester and Southampton, under the abbot Winbert, taught in the abbey school and at the age of thirty became a priest. He wrote the first Latin grammar produced in England.

First Mission to Frisia

In 716 he set out on a missionary expedition to Frisia, intending to convert the Frisians by preaching to them in their own language, his own Anglo-Saxon language being similar to Frisian, but his efforts were frustrated by the war then being carried on between Charles Martel and Radbod, king of the Frisians. He returned to Nursling.

Thor's Oak and the Conversion of the Northern German Tribes

Winfrid again set out in 718, visited Rome, and was commissioned in 719 by Pope Gregory II, who gave him his new name of Boniface, to evangelize in Germany and reorganize the church there. For five years he laboured in Hesse, Thuringia and Frisia, and on November 30, 722, he was elevated to bishop of the German territories he would bring into the fold of the Roman Church.

In 723, Boniface felled the holy oak tree dedicated to Thor near the present-day town of Fritzlar in northern Hesse. He built a chapel from its wood at the site where today stands the cathedral of Fritzlar, and later established the first bishopric in Germany north of the old Roman Limes at the Frankish fortified settlement of Büraburg, on a prominent hill facing the town across the Eder river. The felling of Thor's Oak is commonly regarded as the beginning of German christianization. In 732, he traveled again to Rome to report, and Gregory II conferred upon him the pallium as archbishop with jurisdiction over Germany. Boniface again set out for Germany, baptized thousands and dealt with the problems of many other Christians who had fallen out of contact with the regular hierarchy of the Catholic church. During his third visit to Rome in 737/38 he was made papal legate for Germany. In 745, he was granted Mainz as metropolitan see.

After his third trip to Rome, Boniface went to Bavaria and founded there the bishoprics of Salzburg, Regensburg, Freising and Passau.

In 742, one of his disciples, Sturm (also known as Sturmi, or Sturmius), founded the abbey of Fulda not too far from Boniface's earlier missionary outpost at Fritzlar. Although Sturm was the founding abbot of Fulda, Boniface was very involved in the foundation. The initial grant for the abbey was signed by Carloman, the son of Charles Martel.

Boniface and the Carolingians

The support of the Frankish Mayors of the Palace (maior domos) and later, the early Pippinid and Carolingian rulers, was essential for Boniface's work. The Christian Frankish leaders desired to defeat their rival power, the non-Christian Saxons, and to incorporate the Saxon lands into their own growing empire. Boniface's destruction of the indigenous Germanic faith and holy sites was, thus, an important part of the Frankish campaign against the Saxons.

Boniface balanced this support and attempted to maintain some independence, however, by attaining the support of the papacy and of the Agilolfing rulers of Bavaria. In Frankish, Hessian and Thuringian territory, he established the dioceses of Büraburg, Würzburg and Erfurt. He also organised provincial synods in the Frankish Church, and maintained a sometimes turbulent relationship with the king of the Franks, Pepin, whom he may have crowned at Soissons in 751. By appointing his own followers as bishops, he was able to retain some independence from the Carolingians, who most likely were content to give him leeway as long as Christianity was imposed on the Saxons and other Germanic tribes.

Last mission to Frisia, murder

The forcible conversion of Germany up to the Elbe river was completed by Charlemagne, who destroyed the Saxons independence in the last decades of the 8th century.

Trivia

A famous statue of St. Boniface stands on the grounds of Mainz Cathedral. A more modern rendition stands facing the cathedral of Fritzlar. A statue to him was unveiled in his native Crediton by Princess Margaret located in Newcombes Meadow Park. There is a wooden statue in the Anglican Church - see external link from Crediton. The UK National Shrine is located at the Roman Catholic church at Crediton, Devon, which has a bas-relief of the felling of Thor's Oak, and a series of paintings by Timothy Moore.

His feast day is June 5 in the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church and in the Church of England.

A cathedral has been dedicated to him in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It is called Saint Boniface Cathedral and is a landmark in the city.