Part 1

Bruno or Brun was born about 976 in Querfurt and came from a family akin to the emperors of the Saxon house. At the age of 12, he was sent by his father to the Magdeburg school, famous in the history of the Slavs for its important participation in the education of many Slavic bishops and missionaries. From 968 to 981, this school was under the main command of Archbishop Adalbert of Magdsburg, a former Russian missionary and bishop, and at that time the famous Adalbert-Vojtech was educated there. the main founder of Catholicism in the Czech Republic, who ended his stormy life with martyrdom under the Prussians. Informing its pupils with the “seven breads of wisdom”—Igiiiiit and ^iaigiiish—the school gave them, as can be judged by the internal order and its students, a strictly German direction and prepared in them zealous champions not only of Catholicism, but also of Germanism. Together with Bruno, Thietmar, later Bishop of Merseburg, famous for his chronicles, who was related and close friends with Bruno’s family, was educated in the same school. After completing his studies, Bruno was first a canon at the Church of St. Mauritius in Magdeburg, but, you-. propelled by his education, he was soon taken to court and was so liked by the young emperor Otto III that Otto, according to the biography of Romuald, did not call him anything other than: “my soul.” Probably in 996 he accompanied the emperor to Italy and here, as is believed, in the monastery of St. Alexia took monastic vows in Rome under the name Boniface. A strict ascetic, Bruno Boniface set his ideal as the famous educator of Germany, whose name he adopted as a monk. They say that Bruno was once in a church dedicated to Boniface exclaimed: “And I carry the stump of Boniface: why shouldn’t I be a martyr of Christ?” After some time, Boniface joined the brotherhood, which gathered around the hermit Romuald, who was famous throughout Italy, lived with him in Tibur, Monte Cassino and finally in Perea near Ravenna. Romuald, the famous founder of the Camaldulian order, and his monastery in Perea were important for the newly independent states of Poland and Hungary. The Brotherhood of Romuald was, as it were, intended to replace the Magdeburg school; it was intended to serve as a breeding ground for missionaries and the new clergy, independent from Germany, in Polyp and Hungary. According to Damiani, at the request of Boleslav the Brave, two monks, John and Benedict, were sent from the Romuald brotherhood to Poland to prepare for missionary activity, and here for seven years they worked diligently to study the Polish language, but, unfortunately, when they had already prepared for this task, they were killed by robbers. In the same abbey, in Perea, at the admonition of Romuald, the son of Boleslav the Brave, Boleslav, no doubt prepared by his father to become the head of the national Polish clergy, took monasticism and asceticised. If we add to this that in Ravenna itself, King Stephen of Hungary established a monastery for the Hungarians, that the monastery in Perea was founded in honor of the new Slavic saint Adalbert Vojtěch, that Romuald himself and many disciples subsequently went to preach in Hungary, then we can conclude that the significant name Boniface was given to Bruno precisely in the types of missionary activity intended for him in the eastern regions of Europe. While still in Italy, by mutual agreement of the pope and Emperor Henry II, Bruno was appointed archbishop ip ragibiiv ipGkIieschp, that is, in general in countries that had not been converted to Christianity and did not belong to the Roman Church. In 1002 or 1003 he returned to Germany and received episcopal consecration from Archbishop Tagino with the laying on of the pallium, which he himself brought from Rome. Immediately then the new archbishop went to Poland, to the court of Noleslav the Brave. The most friendly relations were soon established between the archbishop and the Polish king. On the advice of Boleslav, and perhaps through his mediation, Bruno first of all went to Hungary. It only recently became here about Yalta's past on the Kyiv street.