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. John of Kanty

A Kraków professor who gave his coat and shoes to beggars.

Feast: 23 December · 1390 to 1473 · The Middle Ages · Kęty and Kraków, Poland

Read the story 1 min read
Stone statue of St. John of Kanty against the sky.

Unknown author. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Home / The saints / St. John of Kanty

The University of Kraków, the 1400s

John was a peasant’s son who became a professor at the University of Kraków.1

Jealous rivals got him sent away for a while to be a parish priest.1

He came back and taught for the rest of his life.

Patronage No official patronage we can cite yet. The Church remembers him as a professor of Kraków known for his charity.

01St. John of Kanty

The coat

He lived poorly, slept on the floor, and gave his money, clothes and shoes to the poor.1

Live it this week

Give away your coat

John gave the coat off his back. This week, give one good coat or pair of shoes to someone who needs it.

Notes

How we know · 1 source for this page
  1. Franciscan Media, Saint of the Day: “Saint John of Kanty”. franciscanmedia.org. franciscanmedia.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.