Province Sarajevo Name Josip Stadler See Sarajevo Role Religious Leader | Appointed 18 November 1881 Successor Ivan Saric Birth name Josip Stadler Ordination May 24, 1868 | |
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Other posts Apostolic Administrator of Banja Luka (1882–84) Consecration 20 November 1881
by Raffaele Monaco La Valletta Died December 8, 1918, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina Education Pontifical Gregorian University Place of burial Sacred Heart Cathedral, Sarajevo, Stari Grad, Bosnia and Herzegovina Archdiocese Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vrhbosna | ||
Josip Stadler (24 January 1843 – 8 December 1918) was a Croatian priest, the first modern archbishop of Vrhbosna, the founder of the religious order of the Servants of the Infant Jesus (Croatian: Služavke Maloga Isusa) and one of the main instigators of 1914 anti-Serb riots in Sarajevo. He is a candidate for sainthood.
Stadler was born in Slavonski Brod in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, Austria in what is today modern Croatia. Early in life he lost his parents. He was taken care of by the Oršić family. He started his education in Slavonski Brod, and continued it in Požega and Zagreb where he attended gymnasium. In Rome he attended the Pontifical Gregorian University where he attained a doctorate in philosophy and theology. He was ordained a priest in Rome in 1868 and returned to Zagreb. He was a gymnasium professor at a seminary and later a university professor at the Catholic Theology Faculty in Zagreb.
In 1881, the Catholic Church in Bosnia and Herzegovina was reinstated for the first time after first years of thirteenth century, when the last bishop of Vrhbosna was evicted by Bosnian ban Kulin and left Bosnia for Đakovo, in Slavonia, part of Hungarian Kingdom at the time. Pope Leo XIII named Stadler as the first archbishop of Vrhbosna in Sarajevo. Under his direction, the Cathedral of Jesus' Heart was built, along with the seminary and church of Sts. Cyril and Methodius. In Travnik he helped build the gymnasium and seminary, as well as many churches and women's seminaries throughout the country.
He founded the women's order of the Servants of the Infant Jesus with the intention of helping impoverished and abandoned children and others. He sent a plea to Vienna, to Franziska Lechner to send nuns to Sarajevo. He formed the orphanages Betlehem and Egipat for children and a home for the elderly.
He died in Sarajevo in his 75th year on the feast day of the Assumption. He was succeed by Ivan Šarić. Stadler was buried in Sarajevo's cathedral. During Pope John Paul II's visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina on 12 April 1997 the pope prayed at Stadler's grave.
The process for his canonization began in Sarajevo on 20 June 2002.