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Andrew Bobola, SJ (; 1591 – 16 May 1657) was a Polish missionary and martyr of the Society of Jesus, known as the Apostle of Lithuania and the "hunter of souls". He was beaten and tortured to death during the Khmelnytsky Uprising. He was canonized in 1938 by Pope Pius XI.
In the first half of the 14th century, the Bobola family appears in the circle of the powerful Tarnowski family, also bearing the Leliwa coat of arms, as well as at the Polish royal court, where they gained considerable influence. Over time, the family expanded, although many of its branches maintained a middle-class status.
The exact origins of Andrew Bobola were a matter of controversy, as various armorials and biographies offered conflicting accounts.
According to Father Jan Poplatek, a Jesuit and researcher of the saint's life, Andrew Bobola came from a more prominent branch of the Bobola family. His grandfather was said to be Jan Bobola of Piaski, the administrator of Jarosław, owner of several villages, and holder of a house in the Podgórze, near Kraków. This property was reportedly granted to him in recognition of his services by Kings John I Albert and Alexander Jagiellon.
Jan had several children, among them Krzysztof, who, from his marriage to Elżbieta Wielopolska, had three sons: Jan, Andrzej, and Mikołaj. Andrzej achieved the highest position, becoming the Grand Chamberlain of the Crown and a royal secretary. Jan was a landowner and the father of, among others, Sebastian, a Jesuit and university professor, and Kacper, a canon of Kraków and royal secretary. The third brother, Mikołaj, heir to the estate of Strachocina near Krosno, was the father of Saint Andrew Bobola.
Bobola was born in 1591 into a noble family in the Sandomierz Voivodeship of the Kingdom of Poland, then a constituent part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In 1611 he entered the Society of Jesus in Vilnius, then in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the other part of the Commonwealth. He subsequently professed solemn vows and was Holy orders in 1622, after which he served for several years as an advisor, preacher, superior of a Jesuit residence, and other jobs in various places.
From 1652 Bobola also worked as a country "missionary", in various locations of Lithuania: these included Polotsk, where he was probably stationed in 1655, and also Pinsk, (both now in Belarus). On 16 May 1657, during the Khmelnytsky Uprising, he was captured in Pinsk, and then killed in the village of Janów (now Ivanava, Belarus), by the Cossacks of Bohdan Chmielnicki.
Several descriptions of Bobola's death exist, with these invariably involving him being subjected to a variety of tortures before being killed:
On 23 June 1922, the coffin with the relics of Andrew Bobola was opened in Polotsk and an examination was carried out. In December 1922, the coffin with the corpse of Andrew Bobola was delivered to Moscow and placed in the hall of the Popular Exhibition on Health Protection of the People's Commissariat for Health. In January 1923, he was examined by a special commission and an act was drawn up, according to which the corpse of Andrew Bobola is a naturally mummified corpse, which is in the stage of slow decomposition. The results of the examinations were published in 1924 in the journal . Later described by an American journalist as a "remarkably well-preserved mummy", to the Museum of Hygiene of People's Commissioners of Health in Moscow. The whereabouts of the remains were not known to the Catholic authorities, and Pope Pius XI charged the Papal Famine Relief Mission in Russia, headed by American Jesuit Father Edmund A. Walsh, with the task of locating and "rescuing" them. In October 1923—as a kind of "pay" for help during famine—the remains were released to Walsh and his assistant director, Father Louis J. Gallagher, S.J. Well-packed by the two Jesuits, they were delivered to the Holy See by Gallagher on All Saints' Day (1 November) 1923. "Religion: Saints". Time. 25 April 1938. (The Time article says that Walsh personally transported the Holy Relics from Moscow to Rome; but this is apparently a mistake, both since Gallagher (1953) describes his own role as a diplomatic courier with the relics, and McNamara (2005), p. 45, mentions that Walsh stayed behind in Moscow after Gallagher's departure, and only left Moscow on 16 November 1923, and arrived in Rome on 3 December. The author of the book explicitly says in his blog that Gallagher was entrusted with that task.) This book uses as one of its sources L. J. Gallagher's article, "How we rescued the Relics of Blessed Andrew Bobola" (1924), which unfortunately was not available to this contributor. In May 1924, the relics were installed in Rome's Church of the Gesù, the main church of the Society of Jesus.
Since 19 June 1938 the body has been venerated at a shrine in Warsaw, with an arm remaining at the original shrine in Rome (see photo at left).
Declared Beatification by Pope Pius IX on 30 October 1853, Bobola was canonized by Pope Pius XI on 17 April 1938. His feast day was originally celebrated by the Jesuits on 23 May, but it is now generally celebrated on 16 May. In 2002, the Bishops' Conference of Poland declared Bobola a patron saint of Poland.
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Categories: 1591 Births, 1657 Deaths, 17th-century Polish Jesuits, 17th-century Christian Saints, 17th-century Roman Catholic Martyrs, People From Sandomierz County, Polish Roman Catholic Missionaries, Jesuit Martyrs, Polish Roman Catholic Saints, 17th-century Polish Nobility, Martyred Roman Catholic Priests, Incorrupt Saints, Burials At The Church Of The Gesù, Patron Saints Of Poland, Jesuit Saints, Polish Torture Victims, Deaths By Beating In Europe, People Of The Khmelnytsky Uprising
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