Bernard of Wąbrzeźno

Bernard of Wąbrzeźno (Polish: Bernard z Wąbrzeźna, pronounced [ˈbɛrnard zvɔmˈbʐɛʑna], born Błażej Pęcharek, pronounced [ˈbwaʐɛj pɛ̃ˈxarɛk]; 3 February 1575 – 2 June 1603) was a Roman Catholic priest and a Benedictine monk from the Benedictine Abbey in Lubiń, Poland.

A legend associated with Bernard was that he performed a miracle to restore water to the depleted well in the town of Grodzisk Wielkopolski, Poland.

[1] He was born in early 1575 in Wąbrzeźno, in the province of Royal Prussia in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, although the exact date is not known because a fire destroyed the town's church records in about 1751.

[2] His date of birth is estimated to be within a few days of 3 February, based on statements of his older sister Elizabeth who testified under oath in 1645 about his age and baptism.

[1][5] Starting in the 1730s, the Archbishop of Poznań began collecting materials to produce biographies and testimonies of the miracles of Bernard.

[5] However, many of the Vatican archives were lost during the occupation of Rome by Napoleon's Army in the late 1700s, including some of the testimonies of the bishops of Poznań.

Statue of Bernard of Wąbrzeźno in Grodzisk Wielkopolski