GERARD of CSANAD, St. — Benedictine theologian, bishop, and protomartyr of Hungary, born in Venice to the Sagredo family at the end of the 10th century; died at Bagno Rudas on 24 September 1046. He entered the monastery of St George in Isola (later St George Major), becoming its prior in 1012. Sent to Bologna, already renowned as a centre of learning, he studied the liberal arts and philosophy there. Returning to Venice, he was elected abbot of his monastery in 1021. After a few years of wise governance, he resigned his office to undertake a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where his father had died fighting 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. He then retired to the hermitage of Bél (in the Bakony forest), remaining there until 1029, when the king appointed him to the newly established see of Csanád (Cianadino). There he laboured with extraordinary zeal for the conversion of the pagans. He took an active part in the affairs of the nascent kingdom, serving as Stephen’s legate to France and later accompanying him to Ravenna and Rome. Hungary justly regards St Gerard as the godfather of the apostolic kingdom and the apostle of the Marian devotion, so deeply rooted in the people that from that time the Virgin was hailed as the ‘Patrona Hungariae’. The disorders that followed the death of St Stephen led to a revolt of surviving pagans, who put Gerard to a cruel death.
Gerard combined his apostolic labours with an intense life of study. Of his writings, there survives the *Deliberatio Gerardi Moresanae Ecclesiae episcopi supra hymnum trium puerorum ad Singirium liberalem*, preserved in codex 6211 of the Bavarian State Library in Munich and published by I. Batthyány, *Sancti Gerhardi ep. Chanaedensis scripta et acta hactenus inedita* (Karlsburg 1790). In this work he shows himself fairly favourable to the study of philosophy, provided it is acknowledged as inferior to Revelation. He mentions having written three other works (now lost): a commentary on the first chapter of the *Epistle to the Hebrews* and on the First Epistle of St John, and a tract *De divino patris monio*. According to Sansovino, he also wrote a commentary on the Psalms, correcting the Parisian text and justifying his emendations in marginal notes that reveal a better grasp of Greek than of Hebrew. The Latin manuscripts he used belong to the Alcuin recension and are no older than the 9th or 10th century.