BRUNO OF QUERFURT, Saint. - B. in 974, d. 9 March 1009. Of noble lineage, he was the last of the Germanic Saxon apostles in Germany and in the Slavic lands in the wake 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 Sts. Alexis and Boniface on the Aventine, from which he passed among the Hermits of St. Romuald near Ravenna. From Pope Sylvester II he received permission to accept the mission to the Slavs, requested by Boleslaus I king of Poland, and in 1004 at Magdeburg he was consecrated archbishop and "apostle of the Slavs" in order to take up the work of Adalbert, who had suffered martyrdom in 997. Having found himself in difficulty because of the conflicting will of the German court to annex the territory to be evangelized to the German Church, and that of Boleslaus to create a Polish Church, he had to renounce carrying out his activity in Poland. After remaining between 1004 and 1007 in Hungary at the court of King St. Stephen, he came to an agreement with the tsar of Kiev, Vladimir, so as to be able to go and convert the Pechenegs of Ukraine. While he was taking up again his plans of evangelization in Poland, at 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 St. Adalbert and one of the Quinque fratrum Poloniae, that is, of five Camaldolese killed in 1003 (v. BENEDETTO, GIOVANNI, etc.), published by R. Kade, in MGH, Scriptores, XV, pp. 716-38.
The Roman Martyrology commemorates him under the name of Boniface on 19 June, and under that of B. on 15 Oct.; Thietmar bishop of Merseburg (Chronicon, VI, 58, 95, ed. R. Holtzmann, in MGH, Scriptores, new series, IX, pp. 386, 389), his companion, informs us that 15 Oct. was the anniversary of the deposition of B.'s father, called by the same name.
Bibliography5 works
Pier Fausto Palumbo