He is one of the 14 Holy Helpers – powerful intercessors and protectors against misfortune and disease, helpers in times of need, epidemics and wars. The martyr St. Vitus, one of the most mysterious saints in history, has been part of the pantheon of Czech saints since the 10th century. In Prague, he is given patronage over Charles Bridge and the St. Vitus Cathedral, a jewel without which few could imagine the Prague skyline. For centuries, the church has housed one of the greatest temple treasures in Europe, and the relics of Saint Vitus in a silver reliquary bust have been part thereof for almost 1100 years. According to legend, Saint Vitus was born in the late 3rd century in Mazara del Vallo on the west coast of Sicily into the family of a wealthy pagan Sicilian. However, Vitus’s nurse Crescentia and teacher Modestus secretly educated him in the Christian faith, which was a very risky undertaking during the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian. As a Christian, Vitus became a danger to the whole family – his father urged him in vain to renounce his faith. In the end, he turned his son over to the Roman authorities. The Emperor did not relent even after St. Vitus miraculously cured his son of epilepsy. The boy and his tutors were thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil, pitch and lead, but his holiness set him free. Then he was thrown to the lions, who did not eat him, but licked his feet as a sign of humility. According to the custom of the time, if martyrs survived the hardships, they were finally beheaded, and this is how the little boy Vitus died in 303. The fact that he died as a child of 7-12 years caused his cult to grow much stronger than those of other martyrs. He was venerated in Rome from the 5th century, but his European fame is mainly due to the fact that his relics and the veneration associated with them were later transferred to the French monastery of St. Denis near Paris, whence they travelled a hundred years later to the German abbey at Corvey on the Weser. The veneration of Saint Vitus is impressive: there are one hundred and fifty places in Europe alone where his relics are kept. One of them is the Cathedral of St. Vitus, Wenceslas and Adalbert at Hradčany in Prague. The first relic, the bones of one arm of St. Vitus, was obtained for the Bohemian lands by Prince Wenceslas in 925 from the Saxon Duke and German King Henry the Fowler as a conciliatory gift. According to legend, Wenceslas could choose any of the emperor’s jewels as a token of friendship: Wenceslas chose the arm of the holy martyr Vitus. He had a rotunda built and dedicated in his honour at Prague Castle. This was replaced in the 11th century by a basilica and in the 14th century by a Gothic temple as the dominant feature and symbol of the Bohemian kingdom, the site of coronations, the main burial place of Bohemian kings, patron saints, rulers, nobles and archbishops. Emperor Charles IV collected the relics of so many saints in the cathedral that only Rome could compete with Prague in this respect at the time. Among the new relics was the skull of St. Vitus, which Charles IV acquired in Pavia, Italy. It is now part of the St. Vitus Treasure. Saint Vitus is venerated as one of the patrons of the Czech lands; he is the patron of the young, dancers, actors, winemakers, innkeepers, pharmacists, blacksmiths, maltsters and miners; he is the helper of the mute and deaf, people suffering from epilepsy and the disease called St. Vitus’s dance; he is invoked to cure infertility, eye and ear diseases, and even protect against sleeping in. His attributes are a cauldron with boiling oil, a dog, a lion, a book, a palm branch – and of course the rooster, an attribute of vigilance, which is also located on the crest of the Great South Tower of the cathedral. When you are in Prague, ask St. Vitus to help you wake up early and head out into the still empty city streets. Stroll across Charles Bridge, which you will have all to yourself. Stop in front of the Old Town Bridge Tower, where Charles Bridge is depicted in relief. Above it in the middle among the rulers is St. Vitus, whose patronage over the Holy Roman Empire is expressed not by the obligatory palm branch of a martyr, but also by the attributes of power, a sceptre and an orb with a cross. Almost at the end of Charles Bridge on the right you can see a sculpture of St. Vitus by the famous Baroque sculptor Ferdinand Maxmilián Brokoff. The saint, dressed as a Roman legionary, stands on a rock with the lions that, according to legend, did not harm him in any way. On his head, however, he wears a princely crown, a reference to Saint Wenceslas and the origins of the Czech state. The statue suggests that by bringing the remains of the Sicilian boy to Prague, the Czech state was permanently linked to ancient Rome and the Holy Roman Empire.