Nicholas of Flüe (de la Ruppe), Saint

NICOLA della FLÜE (della RUPE), saint. — Patron of Switzerland, born at Flüeli (parish of Sachseln, Unterwalden) in 1417, probably on 21 March, died at Ranft on 21 March 1487. He married Dorotea Wiss of Schwendi, by whom he had ten children. He held public office in the commune and canton: judge and councillor (1459), deputy to the federal Diet (1462); he refused, however, the office of head of state. He took part as a soldier and officer in military expeditions (the Old Zurich War) and during the Thurgau War against Sigismund, Duke of Tyrol, excommunicated by Pius II, he is said traditionally to have saved the nunnery of Katharinenthal from destruction (1460).

Instructed in mysticism by the priest Heimo am Grund, on 16 October 1467, with his wife’s consent, he left his family to live as a hermit and settled in the gorge of Ranft (Sachseln), where he lived in meditation and severe penance. His visions and his remarkable fast of about twenty years, during which the Eucharist was his only nourishment, became famous. His withdrawal from the world did not, as he had hoped, mark the end of his activity but rather the beginning of his historical and political work. The fame of his holiness and his fast spread rapidly beyond the borders of the Confederation into Germany and Italy; visitors of every rank flocked to him from all sides, and contemporary chronicles depict him as the saint of peace. His influence in federal affairs is evident already in the conclusion of the Perpetual Peace with Austria in 1473; but his most important pacifying work was accomplished from 1478 onwards. The Confederation, beset by a severe crisis aggravated by the consequences of the war, though victorious, against Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy (1474–77), saw the rise of division between city-cantons and rural cantons over the admission of Fribourg and Soleure to the Confederation and the division of the spoils of war. Nicholas worked to reconcile these matters and performed the miracle of reconciling embittered spirits at the Diet session of 22 December 1481 in Stans. The danger of civil war vanished, Fribourg and Soleure were admitted to the Confederation, and on the same day the Stans Pact was concluded, which, despite later religious divisions, remained until 1798 the public law of the Confederation. From that time until today, Nicholas has been regarded by both Catholics and Swiss Protestants as the peacemaker and father of the fatherland. Up to his death and ever since, his name has been for all a symbol of peace, concord, and federal loyalty; especially in times of crisis, Catholics and Protestants invoked his name and drew inspiration from the political principles inculcated by the holy hermit, who, an enemy of war, had counselled neutrality and warned the Confederates against conquest, foreign alliances, mercenary service, royal pensions, and interference in other states.

His cult was approved by Innocent X (1 February 1649); Clement IX (23 February 1669) granted the Office and Mass (cf. Decreta Servorum Dei 1592–1654, pp. 814–815; ibid. 1655–75, pp. 655–57, in Arch. S. Congr. dei Riti); he was canonized by Pius XII on 15 May 1947. Feast day 21 March; for Switzerland, 25 September.