Portrait of Bl. Stefan Wincenty Frelichowski

Blessed · Feast February 22 · 1913–1945

Bl. Stefan Wincenty Frelichowski

Stefan Wincenty Frelichowski was born in 1913 in Chełmża, northern Poland. He was an active Scout and was ordained in 1937, working in a parish in Toruń.

The story

Stefan Wincenty Frelichowski was born in 1913 in Chełmża, northern Poland. He was an active Scout and was ordained in 1937, working in a parish in Toruń.

The Germans arrested him in 1939, days after invading Poland. He was moved through several prisons and camps, celebrating Mass in secret wherever he could. From 1940 he was held at Dachau. When typhus swept the camp in 1944–45 he volunteered to nurse the sick, bringing them food and the sacraments. He caught typhus himself and died in February 1945. John Paul II beatified him in 1999; he is the patron of Polish Scouts.

Blessed, not yet a saint

Stefan Wincenty Frelichowski was beatified in 1999.

Beatification allows public veneration, usually in a particular region or religious family. Canonization extends it to the whole Church.

Sources

Sources & notes

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