Occupation Priest Religion Roman Catholic | Name Hermann Stepien | |
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Full Name Karol Herman Stepien Born October 21, 1910 Lodz, Poland Died July 19, 1943, Minsk Region, Belarus | ||
Hermann Stepien (1910-1943) was a Polish Roman Catholic martyr.
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Early life
Hermann Stepien was born on October 21, 1910 in Lodz, Poland. He grew up in a poor family in Lodz.
He was educated in Lodz. He attended the Franciscan seminary in Lviv, graduating in 1929. He then attended the Pontifical University of St. Bonaventure in Rome. He was ordained as a Franciscan priest in 1937 in Rome.
He returned to Poland, where he earned a Master's degree in Theology from Lviv University.
Vocation
He served as a Francisco priest in Radomsko and Vilnius. In 1940, he was asked by Bishop Kazimierz Bukraba of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pinsk to go to Piaršai to help their parish priest, Achille Puchala.
When the Nazis invaded in 1943, Stepien decided to stay and keep preaching. He declared: "Pastors cannot leave the believers!".
Death
On July 19, 1943, the Nazis took Stepien, Puchala and their parishioners to a barn in Borowikowszczyzna, which they set on fire, thus murdering them all together.
Legacy
He was beatified by Pope John Paul II on June 13, 1999 in Warsaw, Poland.