St. Florian

During the reign of Emperor Diocletian, he was one of the victims of his interventions through four anti-Christian edicts from 303 and 304. Today, the territory of Austria belonged to the Roman province of Noricum, and Emperor Diocletian annexed this province to Pannonia. In the vicinity of today’s Linz, in the town of Lauriacum (or Lorch) at the confluence of the Enge and the Danube, its governor Aquilinus had many local Christians shut down and killed. When Florian found out, he rushed to the aid of the Christians. However, he was not careful enough and was arrested a few days later and had to deny Christ under constant torture. Not wanting to give up faith at any cost, and the court disregarded his merits in the military and his blameless life, he handed him over to the executioners. On May 4, 304, they tied a millstone around his neck and threw it into the river Enge near the Roman settlement of Lauriacum (now Lorch, part of the village of Enns in Austria). Florian’s body was found by Valerie’s widow. The funeral was near Linz, in the place where the town of Sankt Florian lies today, and a church, a Benedictine monastery and later a monastery of the Lateran canons according to the Order of St. John the Baptist grew up above its grave in the 6th century. St. Augustine, who bears the name of this martyr St. Florian.

In the church itself, St. Florian was the subject of an extensive cult, his worship was more of a profane character and was spread especially among the rural people. He became a typical figure in the gable niches of village cottages, folk paintings on glass, holy paintings and rustic, especially late Baroque sculptures.

St. Florian is considered the patron saint of fire-related professions – firefighters, metallurgists, chimney sweeps, potters and bakers (there was a bakery in this house and therefore the original owners placed a statue of Florian as the protector of the house). In iconography, he is usually represented in the clothes of a Roman officer with a fire extinguisher or a fire extinguisher. His cult was widespread in the Czech lands and his statues were built to protect against fire.
The Catholic Church commemorates his memory on May 4.
About the popularity and extension of the traditions of St. Florian is mentioned only from Hana, where at the beginning of the first half of the century the Midnightman declared: “Praise the good spirit of the Lord and Jesus, his Son. It’s ten o’clock, dear Saint Florian, this patron town, protect us from the fire. ”
In German, there is the so-called St. Florian’s Principle (Sankt-Florian-Prinzip), which expresses the saying: “O heiliger St. Florian, verschon mein Haus, zünd andre an. ”(O St. Florian, save my house, light another.)

St. Florian has many forms of depiction, we chose some of the better ones