Hyacinth of Poland

Saint Hyacinth, O.P., (Polish: Święty Jacek or Jacek Odrowąż) (b. ca. 1185 in Kamień Śląski (Ger. Groß Stein) near Opole (Ger. Oppeln), Upper Silesia – d. 15 August 1257, in Kraków, Poland of natural causes) was educated in Paris and Bologna. A Doctor of Sacred Studies and a secular priest, he worked to reform women's monasteries in his native Poland.

While in Rome, he witnessed a miracle performed by Saint Dominic, and became a Dominican friar, along with the Blessed Ceslaus, both entering the Order at the Basilica of Santa Sabina and receiving the religious habit of the Order from St. Dominic himself. The two young friars were then sent back to their homeland to establish the Dominican Order in Poland and Kiev. Tradition holds that he also evangelized throughout Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Scotland, Russia, Turkey, and Greece. However, these travels are heavily disputed and are not supported by the earliest lives of St. Hyacinth.

One of his miracles is connected with a Mongol attack on a monastery in Kiev. Hyacinth was about to save a monstrance (or possibly a ciborium, it is unknown exactly which one) containing the Blessed Sacrament when he heard the voice of the Blessed Virgin Mary asking him to take her too. So he decided to take also the statue of the Holy Virgin. Despite the fact that it weighed far more than he could normally lift, it became miraculously weightless. Thus he saved both the Blessed Sacrament and the statue of Our Lady. For that reason the saint is usually shown holding these two items.

A close relative of Hyacinth was the Blessed Ceslaus, who may have been his brother and who accompanied Hyacinth as the first members of the Dominican Order from their nation. Hyacinth was canonized on April 17, 1594, by Pope Clement VIII, and his memorial day is celebrated on August 17. In 1686 Pope Innocent XI named him a patron of Lithuania.

In Spanish-language countries, Hyacinth is known as San Jacinto, which is the name of numerous towns and locations in Spanish-speaking countries, and of two battles fought in two of these locations.

He is the patron saint of St. Hyacinth's Basilica, in Chicago, Illinois, and of those in danger of drowning.

He is also the patron saint of the Ermita de Piedra de San Jacinto in the Philippine city of Tuguegarao, where his feast day is celebrated with a procession and folk dance contests. A town called Camalaniugan in the Philippines is also under the said saint's patronage.

The town church dedicated to San Jacinto or Saint Hyacinth is home to the oldest church bell (the Sancta Maria 1595) in the Far East.

Biography

In 1220, St. Hyacinth became a Dominican friar with three others - a relative, Ceslaus, and two attendants of the Bishop of Cracow - Herman and Henry. As Hyacinth, the "father" of his other three companions, traveled back to Cracow with Ceslaus, Herman, and Henry, he set up new monasteries. His companions were chosen to be the superiors for new monasteries founded by Hyacinth as they proceeded, until finally he was the only one left, as he continued on to Cracow.

Hyacinth went throughout northern Europe, spreading the Faith. He died in the year 1257.

We might add that "pierogi" is probably the only Polish dish that seems to have its own patron saint. "Swiety Jacek z pierogami!", (St. Hyacinth and his pierogi!) is an old expression of surprise, roughly equivalent to the Amarican "good grief" or "holy smokes!". Nobody seems to know what the connection might be between these dumplings and the saintly 13th-century friar.