Saint Christian of Prussia

Saint Christian of Prussia was a Cistercian monk in Poland who felt a burning call to bring the Gospel to the pagan peoples of Prussia in the early thirteenth century. In 1215, Pope Innocent III consecrated him as a missionary bishop, making him the first bishop assigned to Prussia. Christian worked tirelessly to establish local clergy in the region and to build up the structures of the Church where none had existed before. He founded the Dobrin Order, the Knights of Christ Brothers, to provide military protection for missionaries and Christian settlers in the hostile territory. His decades of labor in the face of constant danger laid the groundwork for the eventual Christianization of the Baltic region.