St. Boniface

Their story

Boniface was born around 675 in Wessex, in England, and was baptized Winfrid. He became a Benedictine monk and a respected teacher and preacher. But he longed to bring the Gospel to the Germanic peoples on the continent, many of whom were still pagan. His first mission, to Frisia in the Netherlands, failed. He went to Rome, where Pope Gregory II gave him the name Boniface and sent him to preach in Germany. Boniface worked there for more than thirty years. A famous story tells that in the town of Geismar he cut down a huge oak tree sacred to the pagan god Thor, while the people waited for the god to strike him dead. When nothing happened, many asked to be baptized, and he used the wood to build a chapel. Boniface was made a bishop and later archbishop of Mainz. He founded churches and monasteries, including the great abbey of Fulda, invited monks and nuns from England to help him, and organized and reformed the Church in Germany and France. When he was nearly eighty, Boniface returned to Frisia to complete the mission he had begun as a young man. On June 5, 754, as he prepared to confirm new Christians near Dokkum, a band of armed men attacked his camp. He told his companions not to fight back, and he and about fifty others were killed. He is honored as the Apostle of Germany.