Stone & Incense Search
Start hereCurious, or no faithEvangelical, Pentecostal or ProtestantFrom another faithSomeone I love is CatholicBecoming CatholicI was Catholic once Today in the ChurchLibraryHard questionsVoices of the revivalTake the next stepAboutSources & methodSupport the site
The saints

St. Boniface

The English monk who chopped down Thor’s sacred oak, and became the Apostle of Germany.

Feast: 5 June · about 675 to 754 · The Middle Ages · Wessex, England, and Germany

Read the story 1 min read
Engraving of St. Boniface as a bishop with a crosier and a book pierced by a sword.

Cornelis Bloemaert, 1630. Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.

Home / The saints / St. Boniface

Geismar, Hesse, about 723

Boniface was an English monk named Winfrid when the pope sent him to the German tribes.1

At Geismar stood an oak sacred to the god Thor.1

Boniface took an axe and cut it down, and when no lightning struck, many people were baptized.

Patron of Germany1; brewers and tailors2

01St. Boniface

Apostle of Germany

He organized the Church in Germany, founded monasteries, and worked closely with the popes.1

In old age he went back to the mission in Frisia, and he was killed there with his companions.1

Live it this week

Cut down one idol

Boniface felled the oak people worshipped. Name one thing in your life you give more trust than God (money, a person, your phone, success), and cut it back hard for one week.

Notes

How we know · 2 sources for this page
  1. Franciscan Media, Saint of the Day: “Saint Boniface”. franciscanmedia.org. franciscanmedia.org
  2. Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), “St. Boniface”. New Advent edition. newadvent.org

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) is in the public domain; we quote the New Advent edition. Texts of the Holy See are quoted briefly from vatican.va. Scripture: World English Bible, Catholic edition (public domain); Verse numbers are modern, with Douay-Rheims numbers in brackets where they differ. Photographs: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image; full list on the photo credits page.

Lines in the narrator’s voice, without a note, are our reflection, not a historical claim. Stone & Incense restates Church teaching in plain words; our wording is not an official Church text. Report an errorCorrections.