JOHN NEPOMUCENE, Saint. - Son of a certain Wölfin, born at Pomuk (de Pomuk) in Bohemia between 1340 and 1350, and died at Prague on 19 (or 20?) March 1393. Having become a priest in 1380, he devoted himself to the study of canon law first at Prague, then at Padua, where in 1387 he was promoted "doctor decretorum." But well before that he had begun his ecclesiastical career, becoming notary (1370) and then head (1377) of the archiepiscopal chancery of Prague. By pontifical provision the parish of St. Gall in Prague was entrusted to him in 1380, with the spiritual care of the Germans residing in the city. Having become vicar general of Archbishop John of Jenštein in 1389, the following year he exchanged the parish of St. Gall for the archdeaconry of Saaz (Canonicus Pragensis ad extra), which he held until his death.
When in 1393 the struggle broke out between Archbishop Jenštein and King Wenceslaus IV, who, in order to limit the archiepiscopal powers, wished to raise the abbey of Kladruby (=Kladrau) to the rank of a diocese and place there his favorite Wenceslaus Králík, the king's wrath fell upon the vicar general G. N., because the latter, strong in his canonical learning, had vigorously defended the freedom of the Church and of its archbishop, having the newly elected abbot of Kladrau, Odilo, confirmed. Arrested in the presence of Jenštein together with two other ecclesiastics, G. N., unlike them, who were released, after mysterious interrogations and tortures was thrown by night from the Charles Bridge in Prague into the Moldau and there drowned (19 or 20 March 1393).
According to this version, based on documents and chronicles of the time (principally the act of accusation against Wenceslaus IV presented to Boniface IX by Archbishop Jenštein on 23 April 1393, but discovered only in 1752 after the canonization of G. N. and edited by F. M. Pelzel, Geschichte des König Wenzeslaus I, Urkundenbuch, Prague 1788, pp. 143-63), G. is to be considered a martyr of ecclesiastical freedom. He is known, however, as a martyr of fidelity to the sacramental seal, having been killed, it is said, for having refused to reveal to the king the confession of Queen Sophia. This opinion, whose origin is obscure (since G. had not been appointed confessor of the queen), is attested for the first time by Thomas Ebendorfer in the Chronica regum Romanorum (finished in 1459) and by Paul Zidek in the Správovna (finished in
1477) and spread in the cult of G. N. during the Counter-Reformation. An epigraphic error made in the restoration of the tomb of G. N. (1534) led the chronicler Wenceslaus Hájek z Libočan (Kronika česká, Prague 1541) to distinguish two G. N.s: one a martyr of the confession drowned on 16 May 1383, and the vicar general likewise drowned in 1393. Only the first would be a martyr and saint. This hypothesis, which had supporters until recent times (cf. La critica moderna e il martirio di s. G. N., in Civ. Catt., 12th series, 2 (1883, II), pp. 306-19 and 672-87), is today commonly held to be without foundation, and only the one G. N. killed in 1393 is admitted (cf. Martyr. Romanum, p. 192). In 1721 the Church recognized the ab immemorabili cult of G. N., and on 19 March 1729 Benedict XIII declared him a saint, consecrating the tradition of his martyrdom for the sacramental seal. The bull of canonization, into which various historical errors crept, revealed by the subsequent discovery of documents (especially the aforementioned complaint of Jenštein, which seemed to overturn all the current traditions concerning G. N.), gave rise to a long and bitter controversy still not entirely clarified today. Nevertheless, the conclusion that the nonexistent G. N. who died in 1383 is the only one canonized, and that the other, real one, of 1393 was not declared a saint, is false, since the Church intended to decree the honors of the altar to the victim of Wenceslaus known to history. In a recognition of his body made in 1719 there was found, besides the skeleton, the tongue of the Saint, dried up but incorrupt. In 1693 a statue was erected in his honor on the bridge from which he had been thrown (in the northern countries the statue of the saint is often found on bridges; in Rome it is seen on the Milvian Bridge). He is invoked generally in dangers of water and also as protector of the good reputation of the innocent accused. Feast on 16 May.