Blessed Honorat Koźmiński

Honorat Koźmiński (16 October 1829 – 16 December 1916), born Florentyn Wacław Jan Stefan Koźmiński, was a Polish priest and professed member from the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin who went on to establish sixteen religious congregations. He was a teacher before reinvigorating clandestine religious orders that the Russian Empire had suppressed during their occupation of Poland. He collaborated with a number of individuals in this venture and publicised the Third Order of Saint Francis to people. His beatification, by Pope John Paul II, took place on 16 October 1988 in Saint Peter's Square, Rome. Honorat Koźmiński was born on 16 October 1829 in Biała Podlaska, the second son of Stefan Koźmiński and Aleksandra née Kahl. He was christened Florentyn Wacław Jan Stefan Koźmiński. He suffered a religious crisis at age eleven and it did not reignite within him until 15 August 1846 during his later imprisonment. He attended school in Płock and from 1844 studied architecture in Warsaw at the Fine Arts School. His father died in 1845. On 23 April 1846 Russian troops arrested him and accused him of being a member of a secret patriotic organisation. It was while imprisoned in the Warsaw Citadel that his religious vocation matured. He contracted typhus while incarcerated which forced his release from prison on 27 February 1847. On 21 December 1848 he entered the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin at their Lubartów monastery and started his novitiate. He made his first profession of vows on 21 December 1849 before going on a philosophical course in Lublin in 1849. He made his solemn profession of vows on 18 December 1850 and was then sent in 1851 to Warsaw on a theological course until 1852. Koźmiński was ordained priest by archbishop Antoni Fijalkowski in Warsaw on 27 December 1852. His first job after ordination was as a lecturer in Warsaw from 1853 to 1855 before helping to found the Felician Sisters.