Right-believing Prince Wenceslas of the Czech Lands

Wenceslas (Czech Vaclav; Church Slavonic Vyacheslav) was a tenth-century duke of Bohemia, venerated in the Orthodox Church as a right-believing ruler and passion-bearer. Born around 907 to Duke Vratislaus I and his wife Drahomira, he was raised in the Christian faith chiefly by his paternal grandmother, the holy Martyr Ludmila, who saw to his education. After his father's death he came of age amid the conflict between the Christian and pagan factions of the Bohemian nobility, and he is remembered for advancing the Christian enlightenment of his people.

Assuming rule at about the age of eighteen, Wenceslas governed his duchy and concerned himself with the spread of Christianity throughout Bohemia, building and adorning churches. In Prague he founded a church dedicated to Saint Vitus, later the site of the cathedral that bears that name. His policies of Christianization, together with the political pressures of his reign, set him at odds with a party of nobles, and his brother Boleslaus eventually conspired against him.

In September 935 Boleslaus invited his brother to a feast and then had him attacked. According to the tradition, Wenceslas was murdered at the doors of the church as he went to Matins, struck down by his brother and his brother's servants. He died on September 28, 935, and was regarded as a martyr almost immediately. After Boleslaus repented of the deed, the relics of Wenceslas were translated to Prague and enshrined in the Church of Saint Vitus that the prince himself had built. He is honored as the patron of the Czech lands and is commemorated on September 28 (his martyrdom) and March 4 (the translation of his relics).