GERARD OF CSANÁD, ST.

Bishop and martyr; b. Sagrado, near Venice, Italy, c. 980; d. Buda (Budapest), Hungary, Sept. 24, 1046. A native of a Slav village in northern Italy, he spent a few years of his youth in the Benedictine Abbey of San Giorgio at Venice and returned as abbot after studies at Bologna. The beginning of the 10th century found him in the hermitage of Bel, Hungary, whence King stephen i of Hungary sought him to tutor his son emeric c. 1015–23. Stephen established the Diocese of Csanád in 1035 and appointed Gerard its first bishop with the task of Christianizing southeastern Hungary. Gerard founded mission parishes, entrusting them to monks from various countries; and at the monastery of Csanád he founded a school where monks were trained to convert the Hungarian tribes. Because of the close relations between the Polish and Hungarian monks and hermits at that time, Gerard was until the last century frequently confused with the famous Polish hermit zoËrardus. All of Gerard's writings are lost except the Deliberatio Gerardi Moresanae episcopi supra hymnum trium puerorum. He was martyred at Buda by the idolatrous opponents of the deceased King Stephen as he was attempting to cross the Danube. In 1333 the Hungarian king sent the major portion of Gerard's relics to Venice, where he is revered as that city's protomartyr.

Feast: Sept. 24.

Bibliography: S. Gerardi scripta et acta, ed. i. batthyan (Karlsburg 1790). Bibliotheca hagiographica latina antiquae et mediae aetatis 1:3424–28. m. manitius, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters (Munich 1911–31) 2:74–83. l. c. dedek, Leben des hl. Gerhard (Budapest 1900). j. karÁcsonyi, Szent Gellért (2d ed. Budapest 1925). a. m. zimmermann, Kalendarium Benedictinum: Die Heiligen und Seligen des Benediktinerorderns und seiner Zweige (Metten 1933–38) 3:96–101. a. butler, The Lives of the Saints (New York 1956) 3:629. j. szalay, Catholicisme 4:1868–69. a. l. gabriel, "The Conversion of Hungary to Christianity," Polish Review 6.4 (1961) 31–43, esp. 41–42. h. kapiszewski, "Eremita Swirad w Panonii," Nasza przeszłość 10 (1959) 17–69, esp. 65–68. v. d'ambrosio, L'uomo che asservo Satana: S. Gerardo Maria Maiella (Naples 1964). g. silagi, Untersuchungen zur "Deliberatio supra hymnum trium puerorum" des Gerhard von Csanád (Munich 1967). g. r. zitarosa, San Gerardo Maiella mistico (Naples 1969).

[l. siekaniec]