BRUNO di QUERFURT, saint. — Born in 974, died on 9 March 1009. Of noble lineage, he was the last of the German Saxon apostles in Germany and the Slavic countries, in the footsteps of the great Boniface (v.). Having entered the court of Otto III as chaplain, he followed his lord to Rome, where, at the beginning of the following year, he became a monk in the monastery of SS. Alessio e Bonifacio on the Aventine, from which he joined the Hermits of s. Romualdo near Ravenna. Pope Silvester II granted him permission to accept the mission among the Slavs, requested by Boleslao I, king of Poland; and in 1004 at Magdeburg he was consecrated archbishop and “apostle of the Slavs,” in order to resume the work of Adalbert, who had suffered martyrdom in 997. Finding himself caught between the conflicting intentions of the German court, which sought to annex the territory to be evangelized to the German Church, and those of Boleslao, who wished to create a Polish Church, he had to abandon his efforts in Poland. After remaining between 1004 and 1007 in Hungary at the court of King s. Stefano, he reached an agreement with the tsar of Kiev, Vladimiro, so that he could go to convert the Pechenegs of Ukraine. While he was renewing his plans for evangelization in Poland, on the border between Prussia and Russia, he was martyred with eighteen companions.
Two hagiographical writings by B. have come down to us: a life of s. Adalberto and one of the Quinque fratrum Poloniae, that is, of five Camaldolese monks killed in 1003 (v. BENEDETTO, GIOVANNI, etc), published by R. Kade, in MGH, Scriptores, XV, pp. 716–38.
The Martir. Romano commemorates him under the name of Bonifacio on 19 June, and under that of B. on 15 October; Tiemaro, bishop of Merseburg (Chronicon, VI, 58, 95, ed. R. Holtzmann, in MGH, Scriptores, nuova serie, IX, pp. 386, 389), his companion, informs us that 15 October was the anniversary of the deposition of B.’s father, who bore the same name.