Matthew

Matthew (in Polish Mateusz) was a Polish novice and one of the Five Martyred Brothers of Poland, killed in the night of 10 to 11 November 1003, most probably at Święty Wojciech near Międzyrzecz. He was the brother of Isaac and was a monk.

Almost nothing is known of him beyond this. Saint Bruno of Querfurt calls Isaac and Matthew of the Slavic land and tongue. The hermitage in which they lived had been founded by two Italian monks, Benedict and John, disciples of Saint Romuald, sent by the emperor Otto III to Duke Boleslaw the Brave for mission. A band of men, called bad Christians by the sources, entered the hermitage on the night of 10 November, thinking they had the silver of Boleslaw, which they did not have. They killed Benedict and John in their cell, cut down Isaac, and Matthew, who was running toward the church, they pierced with spears in the monastery courtyard. At the end they killed Christian, the servant of the monastery.

The bodies were buried on 13 November, in a common grave under the church floor. The veneration of the five spread in Poland, Bohemia, Moravia and Italy; Matthew, Isaac and Christian are the first canonized saints from the territory of present-⁠day Poland. The relics were moved to Gniezno, then carried off to Prague in 1038 by Duke Břetislav I, and part of them came back to Poland. His remembrance is around 12 November.

He is a saint of the West, who died before 1054; no Orthodox synodal canonization is known.