Saint Victor of Rome

Victor of Rome (died in Rome) was an early Christian martyr and a saint of the Catholic Church whose relics were gifted by Pope Innocent XI to King John III Sobieski in gratitude for the victory at the Battle of Vienna. The early Christian martyr, whose original name is unknown, died at approximately 30 years of age from a sword blow to the head and was buried in the Catacombs of Callixtus. Following the victory at Vienna, Pope Innocent XI presented King John III Sobieski with a blessed sword, a golden rose, and a papal document certifying the gift of the relics—the complete skeleton of the early Christian martyr, whom the Pope named Victor in commemoration of the victory. In 1740, the relics were collected in Rome by Prince Jan Kajetan Jabłonowski and, after being publicly displayed on September 26, 1740, were transported to the castle chapel in Żółkiew. In the 19th century, the relics were moved to the Church of the Most Holy Trinity in Mariampol. In 1945, during the expulsion of Poles from the Eastern Borderlands, the relics were secretly taken by Father Mikołaj Witkowski, first to Głubczyce, where they were kept in the priest's quarters at a Franciscan monastery. Following Father Witkowski's appointment in 1951 as a lecturer at the Metropolitan Major Seminary in Wrocław, they were placed in the Chapel of St. John the Baptist in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Wrocław. The reliquary is currently located in the Chapel of Our Lady of Victory in the Church of Our Lady on the Sand, beneath the image of Our Lady of Mariampol. In 1971, the martyr's bones were removed from the altar, conserved, and placed back into the reliquary on a special mesh stretched over an oak frame. After measurements of the skull were taken by Professor Zbigniew Rajchel and Dr. Magnuszewski, a facial reconstruction of Saint Victor was created and subsequently placed in the altar.