Blessed János Brenner

János Brenner, O.Cist was a Hungarian Catholic priest and member of the Cistercian Order. Brenner studied for the priesthood during a period of communist persecution of religious orders. Communist authorities came to suspect him of being critical of their regime; his success as a youth chaplain made him a threat. As a consequence, he was murdered by hired men who stabbed him 32 times and inflicted severe wounds to his head using canes. He died soon after having been hurled into a ditch in the woods. The beatification took place on 1 May 2018 in Szombathely. János Brenner was born on 27 December 1931 in the Vas province as the second of three boys. His two brothers also became priests. He attended a Cistercian-run grammar school in Pécs from 1941 to 1946 after the Brenners moved there. He later attended the grammar school that the Premonstratensian Canons ran and graduated from the Cistercian school in Zirc. Brenner began his novitiate in 1950 with the Cistercians at Zirc and took the religious name "Anasztáz" (Anastasius: Greek for "the resurrected"). But a few months after, he had to interrupt his monastic formation when the communist regime began to suppress all religious houses in Hungary. The novice master, Lawrence Sigmond, sought to protect the young men undergoing formation and thus moved them from the abbey, placing them with families in private apartments. The clandestine novices met for formation and fellowship. Brenner was able to attend a diocesan seminary while staying in touch with Sigmond; he studied in Budapest and in Győr. On 19 June 1955, Janos was ordained to the priesthood in the diocesan cathedral of Szombathely by Bishop Sándor Kovács. Brenner's first assignment was to be a chaplain in St. Gotthard, a parish which had over previous centuries been in Cistercian care and site of a former monastery.