Saint Hyacinth of Poland, Apostle of the North

Saint Hyacinth, in Polish Jacek Odrowąż, was a Dominican friar of the thirteenth century, one of the first sons of St Dominic in Poland, whose missionary journeys earned him the title of Apostle of the North. He founded houses of his order from Kraków and preached among peoples still pagan or schismatic, and his name is bound to a famous legend: the flight from Kiev carrying the Blessed Sacrament and a statue of Our Lady. He died on the feast of the Assumption in 1257; the traditional Roman calendar keeps his feast on 17 August.

Who is Saint Hyacinth?

Hyacinth was a Silesian, born about 1185 in the district of Opole (Oppeln), between Wrocław and Kraków, of the noble family of the Odrowąż. His Polish name, Jacek, is a form of John. He was educated for the priesthood and, according to the tradition of his order, was a canon in the household of Ivo Odrowąż, bishop of Kraków and a kinsman of his family.

About 1217 or 1218, perhaps in Rome, he received the habit of the Friars Preachers, the new order founded by St Dominic; the Dominican tradition holds that he took it from the hands of the holy founder himself. With a few companions he returned to Poland, and in Kraków Bishop Ivo gave the friars the church of the Holy Trinity, which became the cradle of the order in the country. He is recorded at this priory in 1228, and ten years later he was preaching a crusade against the heathen Prussians.

Alban Butler, in the 1956 revision of his Lives, gives a careful warning: Hyacinth "was undoubtedly a great missionary; but the particulars of the achievements commonly attributed to him unfortunately depend on biographies that are of very little historical value." The chief of these was written by a friar of Kraków a hundred years after his death. What follows distinguishes the certain from the legendary.

The Apostle of the North

It is certain that in Hyacinth's lifetime the Friars Preachers went down the Vistula to Gdańsk and pushed towards Russia and the Balkans, founding a number of priories, and that Hyacinth had a leading part in this expansion. It is also certain that much of the work was laid waste after the Mongols crossed the Volga in 1238 and fell upon Eastern Europe, and that he laboured to repair it.

His biographers carry him much further: north-east into Lithuania, east to Kiev, south-east as far as the Black Sea, south to the Danube, and north-west into Scandinavia, leaving Silesia, Pomerania and Bohemia to his fellow Dominican Blessed Ceslaus, who was said to be his brother in the flesh. Whatever the exact map, the reputation was earned: he spent forty years on the roads of the North and the East, preaching, founding, and bearing the poverty of a friar. Hence the title the Church gives him in Poland and beyond: Apostle of the North.

The legend of Kiev: the Blessed Sacrament and the statue of Our Lady

The best-known story of St Hyacinth is set in Kiev, where he is said to have founded a Dominican house. When the Tatars stormed the city, he was celebrating Mass. Without taking off his vestments, he took the ciborium with the Blessed Sacrament from the tabernacle to save it from profanation. As he was passing a heavy alabaster statue of Our Lady, he heard a voice: "Hyacinth, my son, will you leave me to the Tatars?" He took up the statue as well, and it became light in his arms. Carrying Our Lord and His Mother, he walked out of the burning city and, coming to the river Dnieper, crossed it dry-shod, walking upon the waters.

Butler warns that such miracles were "no less sensational" than the travels, and that some seem borrowed from the stories of other saints. The legend nonetheless expresses the two loves of the saint and of his order: love of Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist and love of His Mother. That is why St Hyacinth is shown in art in the white habit and black cappa of the Dominicans, holding a monstrance or ciborium in one hand and a statue of the Virgin in the other.

How did Saint Hyacinth die?

He died at the priory of the Holy Trinity in Kraków on 15 August 1257, the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a fitting day for a friar so devoted to her. Before he died he exhorted his brethren to esteem poverty as men who had renounced all earthly things, "for this is the testament, the sealed deed, by which we claim eternal life." He was buried in the Dominican church of Kraków, where his tomb is still venerated. He was canonized by Pope Clement VIII in 1594.

What is St Hyacinth the patron saint of?

St Hyacinth is honoured as:

• one of the patrons of Poland, and of Kraków and Silesia;
• a patron of Lithuania and the lands where his order preached;
• a protector against drowning, because of the crossing of the Dnieper in the legend;
• a model for missionaries and preachers;
• a patron of Polish Catholics abroad, who carried his name to their parishes: the Basilica of St Hyacinth in Chicago, built by Polish immigrants, is the best known of many Saint Hyacinth churches in the United States.

The prayer of the feast of St Hyacinth

The Roman Missal of 1962 keeps his Mass on 17 August with the Mass Os justi of a confessor, and the collect of that common, which asks not for a favour but for the grace to imitate him:

Collect of the feast, 17 August

Deus, qui nos beati Hyacinthi Confessoris tui annua solemnitate laetificas: concede propitius; ut, cuius natalitia colimus, etiam actiones imitemur. Per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum Filium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.

O God, who dost gladden us by the yearly festival of blessed Hyacinth, Thy Confessor: mercifully grant that, as we keep his heavenly birthday, we may also imitate his deeds. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

The Introit of the Mass suits the preacher: "The mouth of the just shall meditate wisdom: and his tongue shall speak judgment. The law of his God is in his heart" (Psalm xxxvi. 30-31).

St Hyacinth and the Dominican century

Hyacinth belongs to the first, heroic generation of the Order of Preachers, the generation that within forty years carried the order from Toulouse to the confines of Christendom. He was a contemporary of St Thomas Aquinas, who was a young friar in Paris when Hyacinth died in Kraków: the one the order's theologian, the other its missionary, both sons of the same rule of prayer, study and preaching. To the same generation belonged St Peter of Verona, who received the habit, Butler says, from St Dominic himself and was murdered for the faith in 1252. Among the many saints in our page on the Catholic saints, he stands for those who spend themselves on the road so that the Gospel may reach peoples who have never heard it.

When is the feast of St Hyacinth?

The feast of St Hyacinth is on 17 August, two days after the anniversary of his death, which falls on the Assumption. In the traditional Roman calendar of 1962 it is a feast of the third class, white vestments; see our traditional Catholic calendar of 1962. In Poland, and especially in Kraków, it is kept with great solemnity. The same calendar honours two other saints of Poland in October: St Hedwig, Duchess of Silesia, on the 16th, and St John Cantius, priest and professor of Kraków, on the 20th.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Saint Hyacinth of Poland?

A Polish Dominican priest, Jacek Odrowąż (c. 1185-1257), one of the first friars of St Dominic in Poland, who founded the Dominican house of Kraków and preached for some forty years across Eastern and Northern Europe. He is called the Apostle of the North.

What is Saint Hyacinth the patron saint of?

Of Poland, Kraków and Lithuania; he is invoked against drowning and taken as patron by missionaries and by Polish communities abroad.

Why is Saint Hyacinth shown with a monstrance and a statue of Mary?

Because of the legend of Kiev: fleeing the city as the Tatars stormed it, he carried away the Blessed Sacrament and, at Our Lady's request, her alabaster statue, which became light in his arms.

When was Saint Hyacinth canonized?

In 1594, by Pope Clement VIII.

Is St Hyacinth the same as St Hyacintha Mariscotti?

No. St Hyacintha Mariscotti was an Italian nun of the Franciscan Third Order Regular at Viterbo, who died in 1640 and was canonized in 1807; her feast is 30 January. Nor is he St Hyacinth the martyr, commemorated with St Protus on 11 September in the 1962 calendar.

Is Saint Hyacinth a Dominican saint?

Yes. He received the habit of the Friars Preachers in the time of St Dominic, about 1217-1218, and is one of the great saints of the order.

The Iter Fidei app carries the Roman Missal and the Breviary of 1962, the prayers to the saints and the traditional calendar with the feast of St Hyacinth on 17 August. Join early access here.

Sources. Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints, 17 August (St Hyacinth). Roman Missal (1962), Proper of Saints, 17 August, and Common of a Confessor not a Bishop (Os justi). Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims version, Psalm xxxvi. 30-31. Stanislaus of Kraków, Life and Miracles of St Hyacinth (fourteenth century).