KILIAN or Kuln was a holy Irish monk, of noble Scottish extraction. With two zealous companions he travelled to Rome in 686, and obtained of Pope Conon a commission to preach the gospel to the German idolaters in Franconia; upon which occasion Kilian was invested with episcopal authority. The missionaries converted and baptized great numbers at Wurtzburg, and among others Gosbert, the duke of that name. This prince had taken to wife Geilana, the relict of his deceased brother; and though he loved her tenderly, being put in mind by St. Kilian that such a marriage was condemned and void by the law of the gospel, he promised to dismiss her, saying that we are bound to love God above father, mother, or wife. Geilana was tormented in mind beyond measure at this resolution; jealousy and ambition equally inflaming her breast; and, as the vengeance of a wicked woman has no bounds, during the absence of the duke in a military expedition, she sent assassins, who privately murdered the three holy missionaries in 688. The ruffians were themselves pursued by divine vengeance, and all perished miserably. St. Burchard, who in the following century was placed by St. Boniface in the episcopal see of Wurtzburg, translated their relics into his cathedral. A portion of those of St. Kilian, in a rich shrine, was preserved in the treasury of the elector of Brunswic-Lunenburgh in 1713, as appears from the printed description of that cabinet: See the acts of these martyrs compiled by Egilward, monk of St. Burchard’s at Wurtzburg, extant imperfect in the eleventh century, in Surius, t. 4, entire in Canisius, t. 4, par. 2, p. 628, and t. 3, ed. Basn. p. 174. Also among the Opuscula of Serrarius, printed at Mentz in 1611, in the collection of the writers of Wurtzburg published by Ludewig, p. 966, and in Mabillon and the Bollandists. See also Thesaurus reliquiarum Electoralis Brunsvico-Luneburgicus. Hanoveræ, 1713, and Solier, t. 2, Julij, p. 600. 1
Butler’s Lives of the Saints
Whenever I read these stories, it prompts thinking about how little really changes through the centuries. The whole story of the Church is one of constant attacks from the secular world, rampant heresy and apostasy, and deep corruption in both secular and ecclesial circles. And of course, that history also includes the select few whose resistance to the world and constancy for Christ make them stand out from the crowd. The occasional hagiographic excesses notwithstanding, the stories of the saints, particularly the martyrs, amaze me and, I will admit, frighten me a little bit, wondering how I would handle similar challenges.
I stood by that statue in 2005. Coming down from the castle (Marienenburg) I greeted an older German, who asked “You are American?”
“Yes”
“I was once in America.”
“Really? Where did you visit?”
“New York, Oklahoma, Arkansas.”
“That was an interesting trip. What were you doing?”
He smiled: “Prisoner of war”
I only wish my German had been better.