GERARD OF CSANÁD, Saint. - Benedictine theologian, bishop and protomartyr of Hungary, b. in Venice to the Sagredo family at the end of the 10th century, d. at Bagno Rudas on 24 Sept. 1046. A monk at S. Giorgio in Isola (later S. Giorgio Maggiore), he soon became its prior (1012); sent to Bologna, already known as a center of studies, he learned the liberal arts and philosophy there; having returned to Venice, he was elected abbot of his monastery (1021). After a few years of wise governance, he left the office to undertake a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where his father had died fighting against the infidels. Passing through Hungary he was detained by King St. Stephen (997-1036), who entrusted him with the education of his only son, St. Emeric. Having then withdrawn to the hermitage of Bèl (Bakony forest), he remained there until 1029, the year in which the king entrusted him with the new bishopric of Csanàd (Cianadino), where he labored with extraordinary zeal for the conversion of the pagans. He took an active part in the affairs of the nascent kingdom; he went to France as Stephen's legate, whom he then accompanied to Ravenna and to Rome. Hungary rightly regards St. G. as the godfather of the "apostolic kingdom" and the apostle of the Marian cult, so deeply rooted in the people that from then on it hailed the Virgin as "Patrona Hungariae". The disorders that occurred among the successors of St. Stephen led to a revolt of the surviving pagans, who inflicted a cruel death on G.
G. combined an intense life of study with action. Of his works there remains to us the Deliberatio Gerardi Moresanae Ecclesiae episcopi supra hymnum trium puerorum ad Isingrium liberalem, preserved in cod. 6211 of the National Library of Munich and published by I. Batthyani, Sancti Gerhardi ep. Chanadiensis scripta et acta hactenus inedita (Karlsburg 1790), in which G., among other things, shows himself quite favorable to the study of philosophy, provided that its inferiority in the face of Revelation is acknowledged. In this work he says he has written three others (lost): a commentary on the first chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews and on the first of St. John, and a short work De divino patrimonio. According to Sansovino he would also have written some oratorical works and a De laudibus B. M. V.: James of Varazze in his Legenda aurea (ed. Th. Graesse, Leipzig 1850, p. 511) does in fact cite a collection of Marian homilies by G.
Bibliography11 works
Antonio Piolanti