Karol Herman Stępień


Karol Herman Stępień was a Polish Roman Catholic martyr.

Early life

Stępień was born on October 21, 1910 in Lodz, Poland. He grew up in a poor family in Lodz.
Stępień was educated in Lodz. He attended the Franciscan seminary in Lviv, graduating in 1929. He then attended the Pontifical University of St. Bonaventure in Rome. He was ordained as a Franciscan priest in 1937 in Rome.
Stępień returned to Poland, where he earned a Master's degree in Theology from Lviv University.

Vocation

He served as a Francisco priest in Radomsko and Vilnius. In 1940, he was asked by Bishop Kazimierz Bukraba of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pinsk to go to Piaršai to help their parish priest, Achille Puchala.
When the Nazis invaded in 1943, Stepien decided to stay and keep preaching. He declared: "Pastors cannot leave the believers!".

Death

On July 19, 1943, the Nazis took Stępień, Puchala and their parishioners to a barn in Borowikowszczyzna, which they set on fire, thus murdering them all together.

Legacy

Stępień was beatified by Pope John Paul II on June 13, 1999 in Warsaw, Poland.