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Maximilian Kolbe | |
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 Kolbe in 1936 | |
| Martyr | |
| Born | Raymund Kolbe (1894-01-08)8 January 1894 Zduńska Wola,Congress Poland,Russian Empire |
| Died | 14 August 1941(1941-08-14) (aged 47) Auschwitz-Birkenau,Nazi Germany |
| Venerated in | |
| Beatified | 17 October 1971,Vatican City byPope Paul VI |
| Canonized | 10 October 1982, Vatican City byPope John Paul II |
| Majorshrine | Basilica of the Omni-mediatress of All Glories |
| Feast | 14 August |
| Attributes |
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| Patronage | prisoners, drug addicts, families, journalists,amateur radio operators,pro-life movement, people with eating disorders[1] |
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| Part ofa series on |
| Persecutions of theCatholic Church |
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Maximilian Maria KolbeOFMConv (bornRaymund Kolbe;Polish:Maksymilian Maria Kolbe;[a] 8 January 1894 – 14 August 1941) was a PolishConventual Franciscan friar,priest, missionary, andmartyr. He volunteered to die in place of a man namedFranciszek Gajowniczek in the Germandeath camp ofAuschwitz, located inGerman-occupied Poland duringWorld War II. He had been active in promoting the veneration of theImmaculateVirgin Mary, founding and supervising the monastery ofNiepokalanów nearWarsaw, operating anamateur-radio station (SP3RN), and founding or running several other organizations and publications.
On 10 October 1982,Pope John Paul IIcanonized Kolbe and declared him amartyr of charity.[2] TheCatholic Church venerates him as thepatron saint of amateur radio operators, drug addicts,political prisoners, families, journalists, and prisoners.[3] John Paul II declared him "the patron of our difficult century".[4][5] His feast day is 14 August, the day of hismartyrdom.
Due to Kolbe's efforts to promoteconsecration and entrustment to Mary, he is known as an "apostle of consecration to Mary".[6]
Raymund Kolbe was born on 8 January 1894 inZduńska Wola, in theKingdom of Poland, then a puppet state of theRussian Empire. He was the second son ofweaver Julius Kolbe andmidwife Maria Dąbrowska.[7] His father was anethnic German,[8] and his mother wasPolish. Raymund had four brothers, two of whom died oftuberculosis. Shortly after his birth, his family moved toPabianice in Poland.[7]
In 1903, when he was age nine, Kolbe experienced a vision of theVirgin Mary.[9] He later described this incident:
That night I asked the Mother of God what was to become of me. Then she came to me holding two crowns, one white, the other red. She asked me if I was willing to accept either of these crowns. The white one meant that I should persevere in purity and the red that I should become a martyr. I said that I would accept them both.[10]
In 1907, Kolbe and his elder brother Francis joined theOrder of Friars Minor Conventual, known as the Conventual Franciscans.[11] They enrolled at the Conventual Franciscan minor seminary inLwów, in present-day Ukraine, later that year. In 1910, the Franciscans allowed Raymund Kolbe to enter thenovitiate, where he chose a religious name, Maximilian. He professed hisfirst vows to the order in 1911, and hisfinal vows in 1914,[12] adopting the additional name of Maria (Mary).[7]
The Franciscans sent Kolbe toRome in 1912 to attend thePontifical Gregorian University. While he was studying at the Gregorian, World War I broke out in 1914. The next year, Kolbe's father Julius joined thePolish Legions, a unit in theAustro-Hungarian Army led byJózef Piłsudski. Julius was captured later that year by theImperial Russian Army and was hanged as a traitor. The news of his father's execution traumatized Kolbe.[13]
Kolbe earned aDoctor of Philosophy from the Gregorian in 1915. Kolbe then continued his studies at thePontifical University of St. Bonaventure in Rome, where he earned adoctorate in theology in either 1919[7] or 1922.[14] During this period, he became active in theconsecration and entrustment to Mary.
While in Rome, Kolbe witnessed vehement demonstrations byFreemasons againstPope Pius X and laterPope Benedict XV. According to Kolbe:
They placed the black standard of the "Giordano Brunisti" under the windows of the Vatican. On this standard the archangel, Michael, was depicted lying under the feet of the triumphant Lucifer. At the same time, countless pamphlets were distributed to the people in which the Holy Father (i.e., the Pope) was attacked shamefully.[15][16]
To counter these demonstrations, Kolbe started theMilitia Immaculatae (Army of the Immaculate One) on 16 October 1917. This was a group of Catholics who prayed for the conversion of sinners and enemies of the Catholic Church, specifically the Freemasons, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary.[17][14] So serious was Kolbe about this goal that he added a line to theMiraculous Medal prayer:
O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.And for all those who do not have recourse to thee; especially the Freemasons and all those recommended to thee.[18]
During this period, Kolbe proposed that the entireFranciscan Order be consecrated to the Immaculate by an additional vow. The idea was well received, but faced the hurdles of approval by the hierarchy of the order and the lawyers and was never adopted.[19]
In 1918, Kolbe wasordained a priest.[20] In July 1919, after the end of World War I, he returned to Poland to teach at the Kraków Seminary. TheSecond Polish Republic had won its independence from theRussian Republic in 1918. While in Kraków, Kolbe was active in promoting the veneration of theImmaculateVirgin Mary. He was strongly opposed to socialist andcommunist movements that had surfaced in Poland after the war.[7]
In 1922, a recurrence of tuberculosis forced Kolbe to leave the seminary.[7][14][20]
In January 1922, Kolbe founded the monthly periodicalRycerz Niepokalanej (Knight of the Immaculata), a devotional publication based on the FrenchLe Messager du Coeur de Jesus (Messenger of the Heart of Jesus). From 1922 to 1926, he operated a religious publishing press inGrodno in present-day Belarus.[7] As his activities grew in scope, in 1927 he founded a new Conventual Franciscan monastery atNiepokalanów near Warsaw. It became a major religious publishing centre.[14][7][20] A junior seminary was opened there two years later.[14]
During the 1920s, Kolbe encountered a group of Japanese Catholics studying in Poland. They lamented the lack of Catholic missionaries in Japan, prompting Kolbe to consider making a missionary trip to East Asia.[21][7][20]Kolbe arrived in 1930 inShanghai, then part of the Republic of China. However, his mission failed to gather a following there, prompting him to move to Japan.[7] Kolbe soon acquired a basic literacy in Japanese.[22] In 1931, Kolbe founded aFranciscan monastery,Mugenzai no Sono (無原罪の園,transl. Garden of the Immaculata),[b] outsideNagasaki.[22] The monastery soon began publishing a Japanese edition of theKnight of the Immaculata.[21][7][20]
In mid-1932, Kolbe left Japan forMalabar, then part ofBritish India, where he founded another monastery.[14][self-published source]
Meanwhile, in his absence the monastery at Niepokalanów began to publish a daily newspaperMały Dziennik (the Small Diary), in alliance with the political groupNational Radical Camp (Obóz Narodowo Radykalny).[14][7] This publication reached a circulation of 137,000, and nearly double that, 225,000, on weekends.[23] Kolbe returned to Poland in 1933 for a general chapter of the order inKraków.[24][25] Kolbe returned to Japan and remained there until called back to attend the Provincial Chapter in Poland in 1936. There he was appointed guardian of Niepokalanów, thus precluding his return to Japan. In 1938, he started a radio station at Niepokalanów,Radio Niepokalanów.[14][self-published source][26] He held anamateur radio licence, with the call sign SP3RN.[27]
Theinvasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 by the German Army signaled the start ofWorld War II. Kolbe was one of the few priests who remained in the monastery, where he organized a temporary hospital.[7] After the Germans captured Niepokalanów, they arrested Kolbe on 19 September 1939.[14][7] While in custody, Kolbe refused to sign theDeutsche Volksliste (German People's List). Doing so would have given him rights similar to those of German citizens in exchange for recognizing his ethnic German ancestry.[28] The Germans released him on 8 December 1939.[14]
Upon his release, he continued work at his friary where he and other friars provided shelter to refugees fromGreater Poland, including 2,000 Jews whom he hid from Nazi persecution in the Niepokalanów friary.[14][self-published source][20][29][28][30] Kolbe received permission to continue publishing religious works, though significantly reduced in scope.[28] The monastery continued to act as a publishing house, issuing a number of publications considered anti-Nazi.[14][self-published source][20]
On 17 February 1941, theGestapo shut down the monastery and arrested Kolbe along with four others. He was incarcerated in thePawiak prison inWarsaw.[14] On 28 May 1941, the Germans transferred Kolbe to theAuschwitz concentration camp as prisoner 16670.[31]
Arriving at Auschwitz, Kolbe started ministering to his fellow prisoners. He was subjected to violent harassment by the guards, including beatings and lashings. On one occasion, sympathetic inmates smuggled the wounded Kolbe to a prisoner hospital.[14][28]
At the end of July 1941, a prisoner successfully escaped from Auschwitz. In reprisal, the deputy camp commander,SS-HauptsturmführerKarl Fritzsch, ordered guards to pick ten men to be starved to death in an underground bunker. When selected,Franciszek Gajowniczek, a Polish Catholic, cried out, "My wife! My children!" At that moment, Kolbe volunteered to take his place.[11]
An assistant janitor later testified that Kolbe led the prisoners in prayer from his prison cell. Each time the guards checked on him, he was standing or kneeling in the middle of the cell and looking calmly at those who entered. After the group had been starved and deprived of water for two weeks, only Kolbe and three others remained alive.[32]
Impatient to empty the bunker, the guards gave the four remaining prisoners lethal injections ofcarbolic acid. Kolbe is said to have raised his left arm and calmly waited for it.[20] Maximilian Kolbe died on 14 August 1941. He was cremated on 15 August, which happened to be thefeast day of theAssumption of Mary.[28]
The cause for Kolbe's beatification was opened at a local level on 3 June 1952.[33] On 12 May 1955, Kolbe was recognized by Pope Pius XII as aservant of God.[28] Kolbe was declaredvenerable byPope Paul VI on 30 January 1969 andbeatified as aconfessor of the faith by the same pope in 1971. The miracles used to confirm Kolbe's beatification were the July 1948 cure of intestinal tuberculosis in Angela Testoni and the August 1950 cure of calcification of thearterial sclerosis of Francis Ranier. Both individuals attributed their cures to Kolbe's intercession by their prayers to him.[14][self-published source]
Kolbe wascanonized byPope John Paul II on 10 October 1982.[14][34] The pope declared him as a confessor and amartyr of charity. Franciszek Gajowniczek, the man Kolbe saved at Auschwitz, survived theHolocaust and was present as a guest at both the beatification and the canonization ceremonies.[35]
After his canonisation, a feast day for Kolbe was added to theGeneral Roman Calendar. He is one of ten 20th-century martyrs who are depicted in statues above the Great West Door of the AnglicanWestminster Abbey in London.[36]
Kolbe isremembered in theChurch of England with acommemoration on 14 August.[37]
Kolbe's recognition as aChristian martyr generated some controversy within the Catholic Church.[38] While his self-sacrifice at Auschwitz was considered saintly and heroic, he was not killed as a result ofodium fidei (hatred of the faith), but as the result of his act ofChristian charity toward another man.Pope Paul VI recognized this distinction at Kolbe's beatification, naming him a confessor and giving him the unofficial title "martyr of charity". John Paul II, however, overruled the commission he had established (which agreed with the earlier assessment of heroic charity). John Paul II wanted to make the point that the Nazis' systematic hatred of whole categories of humanity was inherently also a hatred of religious (Christian) faith; he said that Kolbe's death equated to earlier examples of religious martyrdom.[38]
Kolbe's alleged antisemitism was a source of controversy in the 1980s in the aftermath of hiscanonization.[39] In 1926, in the first issue of the monthlyKnight of the Immaculate, Kolbe said he considered Freemasons "as an organized clique of fanatical Jews, who want to destroy the church."[40] In a 1924 column, he cited theProtocols of the Elders of Zion as an "important proof" that "the founders of Zionism intended, in fact, the subjugation of the entire world", but that "not even all Jews know this".[41] In a calendar that the publishing house of his organization, the Militia of the Immaculate, published in an edition of a million in 1939, Kolbe wrote,
Atheistic Communism seems to rage ever more wildly. Its origin can easily be located in that criminal mafia that calls itself Freemasonry, and the hand that is guiding all that toward a clear goal is international Zionism. Which should not be taken to mean that even among Jews one cannot find good people.[42]
In his periodicals, Kolbe published articles about topics such as aZionist plot for world domination.[43][44][45] Slovenian philosopherSlavoj Žižek criticized Kolbe's activities as "writing and organizing mass propaganda for the Catholic Church, with a clear anti-Semitic and anti-Masonic edge."[44][46] In contrast, a writer for onlineEWTN stated that the "Jewish question played a very minor role in Kolbe's thought and work" and that "only thirty-one out of over 14,000 of his letters reference the Jewish people or Judaism, and most express a missionary zeal and concern for their spiritual welfare".[47]
During World War II, Kolbe's monastery at Niepokalanówsheltered Jewish refugees.[44] According to the testimony of a local, "When Jews came to me asking for a piece of bread, I asked Father Maximilian if I could give it to them in good conscience, and he answered me, 'Yes, it is necessary to do this because all men are our brothers.'"[47]
First-class relics of Kolbe exist, in the form of hairs from his head and beard, preserved without his knowledge by two friars at Niepokalanów who served as barbers in his friary between 1930 and 1941. Since hisbeatification in 1971, more than 1,000 such relics have been distributed around the world for public veneration.[48]
Second-class relics, such as his personal effects, clothing and liturgicalvestments, are preserved in his monastery cell and in a chapel at Niepokalanów, where they may be venerated by visitors.[48]
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Kolbe influenced his own Order of Conventual Franciscan friars, as theMilitia Immaculatae movement had continued.[49] In recent years, new religious andsecular institutes have been founded, inspired from this spiritual way. Among these are the Missionaries of the Immaculate Mary – Fr. Kolbe, the Franciscan Friars of Mary Immaculate, and a parallel congregation ofreligious sisters and others. The Franciscan Friars of Mary Immaculate are taught basic Polish so they can sing the traditional hymns sung by Kolbe, in his native tongue.[50]
According to the friars:
Our patron, St. Maximilian Kolbe, inspires us with his uniqueMariology and apostolic mission, which is to bring all souls to the Sacred Heart of Christ through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Christ's most pure, efficient, and holy instrument of evangelization – especially those most estranged from the Church.[50]
Kolbe's views intoMarian theology echo today through their influence onVatican II.[14] His image may be found in churches across Europe[36] and throughout the world. Several churches in Poland are under his patronage, such as the Sanctuary of Saint Maxymilian inZduńska Wola and the Church of Saint Maxymilian Kolbe inSzczecin.[51][52] A museum,Museum of St. Maximilian Kolbe "There was a Man", was opened in Niepokalanów in 1998.[53]
In 1963,Rolf Hochhuth publishedThe Deputy, a play influenced by Kolbe's life, and dedicated to him.[28] In 2000, theNational Conference of Catholic Bishops (US) designated Marytown inLibertyville, Illinois home to a community of Conventual Franciscan friars, as theNational Shrine of St. Maximilian Kolbe.[54]
In 1991,Krzysztof Zanussi released a biographical Polish film about Kolbe,Life for Life: Maximilian Kolbe [pl], withEdward Żentara as Kolbe. ThePolish Senate declared 2011 to be the year of Kolbe.[55]
In 2023, the Mexican production company Dos Corazones Films released the animated feature filmMax, which recounts part of Kolbe's life.[56]
The 2025 filmTriumph of the Heart tells the story of Kolbe's final weeks in the Block 11 starvation chamber. The film was written and directed by Anthony D'Ambrosio and stars Marcin Kwasny.[57]
Kolbe composed theImmaculata prayer as a prayer ofconsecration to the Immaculata.[58]
city mary india kolbe.
