Mother Earth is man’s home. Thus, man ought to live in harmony with nature. The Celtics, Frisians and Saxons of Europe in the Middle Ages did not only take care of nature. They revered, worshipped and performed devotional rituals to honor trees.
Growing upwards with roots sinking into the earth, they regarded the trees as the link to the heavens and the underworld, symbolizing life, death and rebirth.
The sacred Donar oak tree in the summit of Gudenburg Mountain in Germany was regarded holy. It was believed to have personified the Germanic god Thor.
The tree was in Fritzlar town in North Hesse, Germany. It was cut by Saint Boniface, who was unafraid of the consequences that awaited him, to prove that the Christian religion is the true religion.
The inhabitants came to see the retaliation of their gods on Boniface, but the curse they expected did not happen. A great wind came, but when the tree fell on the ground, it formed a cross, according to Father Willibald, the early biographer of Saint Boniface.
A chapel dedicated to Saint Peter was built from the wood at the site, noted Wilhelm Levison in Vitae Sancti Bonifati.
Evangelizer of Frisia
Saint Boniface was born as Wynfrid in 675 in Devon, England, from respected and prosperous parents.
At the age of 5 he heard the conversation of monks at home and was inspired to be a monk too. He was sent to the monastery at 7 to study, and continued his education in the Benedictine Abbey in Nursling and Winchester, both in England.
He taught in the abbey schools and wrote the first Latin grammar Ars Grammatica, known to be the first compilation in England. He was ordained as priest at 30.
In 716 Wynfrid asked the permission of his abbot to help in the evangelization in Frisia in the Netherlands. With two companions he joined Willibord, who had been working as “apostle of the Frisians” since 690.
He spent a year preaching in the countryside. He later realized that opposition from lords who were at war made evangelization very difficult.
Frustrated, he returned to the abbey in Nursling, while Williboard fled to Echternach in Luxembourg, an abbey he founded.
Wynfrid realized that he needed the help of Rome in his evangelization work. He presented himself to Pope Gregory II in 718.
The pope noted his enthusiasm, named him Boniface and sent him to central Germany “to those people who are still in the bonds of infidelity…. To teach them the service of the kingdom of God by persuasion of the truth in the name of Christ, the Lord our God.”
Church reformer
Boniface worked relentlessly in evangelizing and converting many people. After four years, Pope Gregory II ordained him bishop to evangelize the entire country.
A common feature of German folk religion is the worship of trees. Although Boniface respected the natives’ culture, his determination to prove that Christ is the most powerful God, challenged the pagan followers of Thor.
The people convened on Mount Gudenburg to see him punished by gods, and be stricken by lightning bolts. On a designated day in 723, Boniface cut the Donar tree, which the people considered as sacred.
However, no harm befell on him. The incident resulted in countless conversions.
In 732 he was appointed archbishop of Mainz, Germany. While he continued the Christianization of Germany he also concerned himself with the problems of the church in France.
The pope asked Boniface to help the decadent clergy serving the Merovingian rulers of France.
Acting as moral guardian to the “Frankish Medieval Church,” he told the pope: “Religion is trodden underfoot. Benefices are given to greedy laymen or to unchaste clerks. All their crimes do not prevent their attaining the priesthood at last, rising in rank as they increase in sin.”
He convinced rulers Pepin and Carloman, who were brothers, to initiate a synod to correct abuses in the church. Two synods were convened, which were presided over by Boniface. Within five years the church of France was restored to its former greatness.
Although generally acknowledged as “Saint Paul of Germany,” Boniface was also considered as a church reformer of Europe.
Christopher Dawson (1889-1970), a historian in Great Britain, said in his book The Making of Europe, that Boniface “had a deeper influence on the history of Europe than any Englishman who has ever lived.”
Boniface was sent to a new mission territory in Bavaria, in southern Germany, by Pope Gregory III. In succeeding year he founded dioceses in Salzburg, Vienna; Regensburg in southeast Germany; and in Passau, a German city on the Austrian border.
In 741 he founded the famous abbey at Fulda, a city in central Germany, and obtained a pontifical exemption for the monastery three years after, the “first such privilege in the history of the Church.”
Heroic death
With his resolve to spend his last years in the Netherlands, he returned to Friesland province at the age of 75.
While he was preparing new converts for baptism in Dokkum, Friesland, fierce pagan warriors murdered him along with 12 clerics and 40 converts.
His dying words: “So be heroic in the Lord and suffer this royal grace of His will gladly. Keep your trust in Him and He will set your souls free.”
Saint Boniface was buried in the monastery in Fulda. The book that he raised above his head before he was killed was preserved. The book was dented with the sharp edge of the sword and with stains of blood.
Pope Pius IX extended the martyr’s cult to the universal church in 1874.
Saint Boniface is known as apostle of Germany. His feast day is June 5.
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Damo-Santiago is a former regional director of the Department of Education National Capital Region. She is currently a faculty member of Mater Redemptoris Collegium in Calauan, Laguna, and of Mater Redemptoris College in San Jose City, Nueva Ecija.
Image credits: Wikimedia Commons