A Dictionary of Saintly Women/Mlada Bolesla

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
1695794A Dictionary of Saintly Women — Mlada BoleslaAgnes B. C. Dunbar

St. Mlada Bolesla, Feb. 8, March 28, + c. 995, O.S.B., called also Madla, Madila, Milada, and in religion Mary. Princess of Bohemia. Founder and first abbess of the nunnery of St. George at Prague. Daughter of Boleslas the Cruel, duke of Bohemia (936-967). Great-granddaughter of St. Ludmilla. Sister of Boleslas II. the Pious.

Mlada was devout and learned. She went to Rome to pray at the places consecrated by the footsteps of the apostles and the blood of the martyrs. She remained there a considerable time, and learned monastic rule. When she had given sufficient proof of her good disposition and ability. Pope John XIII. sent her back to Prague to confirm the still new Christianity of her own country. He considered Mlada a barbaric name, and found it difficult to pronounce; he therefore gave the princess the name of Mary, with the Benedictine rule and the staff of an abbess, and charged her with apostolic letters to her brother, the Duke. In the letter of John XIII. to Boleslas II., preserved by Mabillon, the Pope enjoins him to uphold the Roman Church and not to suffer the Slavonian rite in any of the churches he builds. On her return, Mlada built the Benedictine nunnery of St. George, in the citadel of Prague, about the year 986. Here she presided over many nuns and helped to Christianize the nation until her death. She is buried in the chapel of St. Anne, in the great church of St. Vitus and St. Wenceslaus, which was constituted an episcopal church by a bull obtained by her from the Pope. And there she is commemorated, Feb. 8, by the nuns in their very ancient private breviary. AA.SS.O.S.B. Chanowski, Vestigium Bohemiæ Piæ. Palacky, Böhmen. Wion, Lignum Vitæ. Eneas Silvius, Hist. Bohemiæ.