Blessed Ceslaus Odrowąż

Ceslaus, O.P., (Polish: Czesław) (c. 1184 – c. 1242) was born in Kamień Śląski in Silesia, Poland, of the noble family of Odrowąż, and was a relative, possibly the brother, of Hyacinth of Poland. Having studied philosophy at Prague, he pursued his theological and juridical studies at the University of Bologna, after which he returned to Kraków, where he held the office of canon and custodian of the church of Sandomierz. About 1218 he accompanied his uncle Ivo, Bishop of Kraków, to Rome. Hearing of the great sanctity of Dominic of Guzmán, who had recently been attributed the miracle of resuscitating the nephew of Cardinal Stefano di Fossa Nova who had been killed in a fall from his horse, Ceslaus, together with Hyacinth, sought admission into the Order of Friars Preachers. In 1219 Pope Honorius III invited Dominic and his companions to take up residence at the ancient Roman basilica of Santa Sabina, which they did by early 1220. Hyacinth and Ceslaus along with their companions Herman and Henry were among the first to enter the studium of the Dominican Order at Rome out of which would grow the 16th-century College of Saint Thomas at Santa Maria sopra Minerva and the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum in the 20th century. After an abbreviated novitiate Ceslaus, Hyacinth and their companions received the religious habit of the Order from Dominic himself in 1220. Their novitiate completed, Dominic sent the young friars back as missionaries to their own country. Establishing a friary at Friesach in Austria, they proceeded to Kraków whence Ceslaus was sent by Hyacinth to Prague, the metropolis of Bohemia. Labouring with much fruit throughout the Diocese of Prague, Ceslaus went to Wrocław, where he founded a large priory, and then extended his missionary labours over a vast territory, embracing Bohemia, Poland, Pomerania, and Saxony. Sometime after the death of Hyacinth he was chosen the Provincial Superior for Poland.