Saint Bruno

Bruno was born in Cologne, Germany, around 1030. He studied at Reims, in France, and became a renowned teacher and head of its cathedral school; one of his students later became Pope Urban II. When a corrupt archbishop took over Reims, Bruno opposed him and lost his position, and he decided to give his life entirely to God.

In 1084, with six companions and the help of Saint Hugh, Bishop of Grenoble, he settled in a wild valley of the Alps called the Chartreuse. There they lived as hermits in community, in prayer, silence and work: the beginning of the Carthusian Order. In 1090 Urban II called Bruno to Rome as an adviser, but he longed for solitude and was allowed to found a new hermitage in Calabria, southern Italy. He died there on October 6, 1101.

The Carthusians still follow Bruno's way of life with little change, under the motto "The Cross stands firm while the world turns." The Grande Chartreuse remains their mother house in France.

In Calabria, the town of Serra San Bruno keeps his relics and holds a festival and procession in his honor, and Carthusian monasteries in Spain and Latin America celebrate his feast with solemn liturgy.