Our Patron saint: st. john nepomuk

The feast day of St. John Nepomuk is celebrated on May 16th. St. John Nepomuk was born in Nepomuk (or Pomuk), Bohemia, on March 20, 1350. A canon of the Prague Cathedral, he advanced to the post of vicar-general of the Archdiocese of Prague (1389) while John of Jenstein was archbishop (1378-1400). Nepomuk has traditionally been considered “the patron of the seal of confession.” Supposedly, as the spiritual director of Queen Sophie, he refused to reveal anything when the King, Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia, demanded his confirmation of Sophie’s suspected adultery.

The king and archbishop were clashing over the Benedictine Abbey of Kladruby, which Wenceslaus had intended to confiscate once the old abbot died. He planned to use the abbey as the basis for a new diocese he wished to found. However, when the abbot died, Nepomuk, as vicar-general, immediately confirmed the appointment of a new abbot on March 10, 1393. At a subsequent conference of king and archbishop, Wenceslaus flew into a rage, seized three of the archbishop’s counselors, including Nepomuk, and ordered them to be tortured. (Exactly what information he wanted is unknown, but chroniclers in the latter half of the fifteenth century regularly assigned the reason for his torture and death to his refusal to reveal the queen’s confession.)

St. John Nepomuk resisted the torture to the last. He was made to undergo all manner of suffering, including the burning of his sides with torches, but even this could not move him. Finally, the king ordered him to be put in chains, led through the city with a block of wood in his mouth, and thrown into the Moldau River in March of 1393.

Five stars hovered in the sky over the place where he was drowned, giving the water a strange, shining appearance. It is said that this helped the people find his body. It was taken from the Moldau and interred in the cathedral in Prague. When his grave was opened in 1719, his tongue was found to be uncorrupted, though shriveled.

Despite more than three centuries of controversy, evidence was gathered in the years 1715-1720 and the cause for canonization examined. He was beatified in 1721 and canonized in 1729. John Nepomuk is the patron saint of Bohemia (Czechs), and is the patron of confessors and bridges. He is venerated in Austria and Spain.

St. John Nepomuk is portrayed in art as an Augustinian canon with a fur almuce (cape), usually with a bridge nearby. He may hold his finger to his lips or he may wear a padlock on his lips (in Austria or Bohemia) and he usually has five stars around his head.