Hosius (Hos, Hozusz, Osio), Saint Stanislas

HOSIUS (HOS, HOZUSZ, OSIO), STANISLAO. — Theologian and cardinal, born in Krakow on 5 May 1504, died at Capranica (Sutri) on 5 August 1579. Born into a German family that had immigrated to Poland in the service of the King, he studied first in Krakow, then in Bologna and Padua, earning a degree in law in 1533; there he met Ugo Buoncompagni (the future Gregory XIII, who was his teacher), Lazzaro Bonamico, Cristoforo Madruzzo, Reginaldo Pole, and Otto Truchess, who introduced him to the humanistic and religious currents of the time.

Through contact with these eminent men he acquired a profound ecclesiastical spirit and conceived an unshakable attachment to the Roman Church, which accompanied him throughout his life. On returning to his homeland, he worked for some time in the royal chancery, assisting his patron P. Tomicki, bishop of Krakow and vice-chancellor. In 1543 he became a priest, and in 1549 bishop of Kulm

(consecrated in 1550) and ambassador of King Sigismondo II Augusto to Charles V and Ferdinand I. In 1551 he was appointed bishop of Ermland (Warmia). Paul IV summoned him to Rome in 1558 for consultations on the Reformation. Pius IV sent him as nuncio to the emperor Ferdinand I to negotiate the resumption of the Council of Trent and the difficulties created in ecclesiastical affairs by the conduct of Maximilian II. In 1561, having been created cardinal, he was sent as papal legate to the Council of Trent. After the Council he again devoted his activity to his diocese, and, together with Commendone, obtained recognition of the Tridentine decrees in Poland (the Diet of Parczow, 1564), called the Jesuits to found a college at Braunsberg, conducted the pastoral visitation, and celebrated the diocesan Synod. In 1566 he was appointed papal legate for Poland and in 1569, leaving a coadjutor in the diocese, took up residence in Rome, where he served as ambassador of his King; surrounded by the esteem of the cardinals and especially of Pope Gregory XIII, he was also appointed (1573) major penitentiary, and devoted himself zealously to the affairs of the universal Church, particularly to the Catholic restoration in the northern countries.

H.’s spiritual profile emerges from a synthesis of humanistic and theological formation matured within a rigid orthodoxy and absolute fidelity to the Church. In his theological thought, s. Augustine exerted a particular influence; he knew scholasticism well, but was especially familiar with the controversial literature of his time. He was above all a polemicist; as a theologian, he deserves credit for having synthesized Catholic doctrine in precise formulations, so that its clear separation from the errors of Protestantism might be discerned. The driving force behind the Catholic restoration in Poland and opposed to every compromise in dogma, he worked to ensure that the principle of religious territorialism be applied to Catholicism and that heretics be suppressed even by force.

Principal works: the Confessio catholicae fidei, which was widely circulated and published in 1532, went through 30 editions, of which the best is that of Cologne 1582 (Opera omnia, in 2 vols.); F. Hipler, Die deutschen Predigten und Katechesen der Ermländischen Bischöfe Hosius und Kromer (Cologne 1885); F. Hipler - V. Zakrzewsky, Stanislai Hosi epistolae (I [1525-50], Krakow 1879; II [1551-58], ibid. 1886).