Saint Stephen Harding Prekmurian:
Svéti Števan Harding (died
28 March 1134), is a
Christian saint and monastic
abbot, one of the founders of the
Cistercian Order.
Stephen Harding was born in
Dorset,
England. He was a speaker of
Old English,
Norman French and
Latin. He was placed in
Sherborne Abbey at a young age, but eventually put aside the
cowl and became a travelling scholar. He eventually moved to the abbey of
Molesme in
Burgundy, under the abbot
Saint Robert of Molesme (c. 1027-
1111).
When Robert left Molesme to avoid its corruption and laxity, Stephen and
Saint Alberic went with him. Unlike Alberic, Stephen was not ordered to return, and he remained in solitude with Robert. When twenty one monks deserted Molesme to join Robert, Harding and Alberic, the three leaders formed a new monastery at
Citeaux.
Robert was initially abbot at
Citeaux, returning to Molesme after a year. Alberic then took over, serving as abbot until his death in
1108. Stephen Harding, the youngest of the three men, became the third abbot of Citeaux. As abbot, Stephen Harding guided the new monastery over a period of great growth.
Bernard of Clairvaux came to visit in
1112 and brought with him his followers. Between 1112 and
1119, a dozen new Cistercian houses were founded to contain the monks coming to the new movement. In 1119, Stephen wrote the
Carta Caritatis, ('Charter of Love') an important document for the Cistercian Order, establishing its unifying principles.
Stephen served the house at Citeaux for twenty five years. While no single person is considered the founder of the Cistercian Order, the shape of Cistercian belief and its rapid growth in the
12th century was due to the leadership of Stephen Harding. In
1133, he resigned the head of the order, due to age and disability. He died the following year.
His
feast day in the
Roman Catholic calendar of saints is
28 March. The north aisle of
St Sepulchre-without-Newgate church in
London,
England was formerly a chapel dedicated to him (it became the Musicians' Chapel in the
20th century).
In
Hungary, in the village
Apátistvánfalva there is a Catholic
Baroque Church established. by
1785, the
patron saint of which is Stephen Harding. The village, and the vicinity around Vendvidék was at one time under Cistercian lordship.