The cult of St. Stanislaus

The cult of Saint Stanisław the martyr began immediately upon his death. In 1088 his relics were moved to Kraków's Wawel Cathedral. In the early 13th century, Bishop Iwo Odrowąż initiated preparations for Stanisław's canonization and ordered Wincenty of Kielce to write the martyr's vita. On September 17, 1253, at Assisi, Stanisław was canonized by Pope Innocent IV.

Subsequently Pope Clement VIII set the Saint's feast day for May 7 throughout the Roman Catholic Church, though Kraków observes it May 8, the supposed date of the Saint's death. The first feast of Saint Stanisław in Kraków was celebrated May 8, 1254, and was attended by many Polish bishops and princes.

As the first native Polish saint, Stanisław is the patron of Poland and Kraków, and of some Polish dioceses. He shares the patronage of Poland with Saint Adalbert of Prague and Our Lady the Queen of Poland.

Wawel Cathedral, which holds the Saint's relics, became a principal national shrine. Almost all the Polish kings beginning with Władysław I the Elbow-high were crowned while kneeling before Stanisław's sarcophagus, which stands in the middle of the cathedral. In the 17th century, King Władysław IV Vasa commissioned an ornate silver coffin to hold the Saint's relics. It was destroyed by Swedish troops during The Deluge, but was replaced with a new one ca. 1670.

Saint Stanisław's veneration has had great patriotic importance. In the period of Poland's feudal fragmentation, it was believed that Poland would one day reintegrate as had the members of Saint Stanisław's body. Half a millennium after Poland had indeed reintegrated, and while yet another dismemberment of the polity was underway in the Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the framers of the Polish Constitution of May 3, 1791, would dedicate this progressive political document to Saint Stanisław Szczepanowski, whose feast day fell close to the date of the Constitution's adoption.

Each year on May 8, a procession, led by the Bishop of Kraków, goes out from Wawel to the Church on the Rock. The procession, once a local event, was popularized in the 20th century by Polish Primate Stefan Wyszyński and Archbishop of Kraków, Karol Wojtyła. The latter, as Pope John Paul II, called Saint Stanisław the patron saint of moral order.

Roman Catholic churches belonging to Polish communities outside Poland are often dedicated to Saint Stanisław. In iconography, Saint Stanisław is usually depicted as a bishop holding a sword, the instrument of his martyrdom, and sometimes with Piotr rising from the dead at his feet.

In the center of the Wawel Cathedral's nave is occupied by the 1630 mausoleum of St. Stanislav, Poland's saint patron,. The martyr?s silver coffin (circa 1670) is adorned with 12 relief scenes from his life and posthumous miracles. Marble tombs of four 17th-century Krakow prelates accompany their saint predecessor's chapel-mausoleum.