Saint Bruno of Querfurt (c. 970 – February 14 1009), also known as Brun and Boniface and is sometimes called the second Apostle of the Prussians, is a saint and martyr, who was killed while trying to spread Christianity in Eastern Europe.

Bruno was from a noble family of Querfurt, Saxony. He is romored to have been a relative of the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III. At the age of six he was sent to be educated in Magdeburg, seat of Saint Adalbert. While still a youth he was made a canon of Magdeburg cathedral. The fifteen-year-old Otto III made Bruno a part of his royal court. While in Rome for Otto's imperial coronation, Bruno met Adalbert of Prague, the first Apostle of the Prussians, killed a year later. Bruno spent much time at the monastery where Adalbert had become a monk and where abbot John Canaparius wrote a life of Saint Adalbert. Bruno entered a monastery near Ravenna, founded by Otto, and underwent severe ascetic training under the guidance of St. Romuald.

Otto III hoped to open a monastery between the Elbe and the Oder to help convert the local population into Christianity. In 1003 Pope Sylvester II appointed Bruno to mission among the pagan peoples of Eastern Europe. Because of a conflict between the Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor and Boleslaus I of Poland delayed the plans for the monastery, Bruno set out for Hungary. There he went to the places that Saint Adalbert of Prague had attended. Bruno tried to convert Ahtum, Duke of Banat, who was an Orthodox. Bruno encountered strong opposition, including that of the Greek monks there. After this failure, Bruno went to Kiev, where Grand Duke Vladimir I authorized him to make converts among the Pechenegs, semi-nomadic Turkic peoples living between the Danube and the Don rivers. Bruno spent five months there and baptized some thirty adults. He helped to bring about a peace treaty between them and the ruler of Kiev.

Before leaving for Poland, Bruno consecrated a bishop for the Pechenegs. While in Poland he consecrated the first Bishop of Sweden. Bruno found out that his friend Benedict and four companions had been killed by robbers in 1003. Bruno took eyewitness accounts and wrote down a touching history of the so-called Five Martyred Brothers.

At the end of 1008 Bruno and eighteen companions set out to found a mission among the Prussians, but met with little success. They then traveled to the north-east, heading towards Lithuania. Along the border of Kievan Rus and Lithuania, Bruno succeeded in converting Netimeras, a local ruler of Yotvingians. However, not all were happy with the changes and, according to Wipert, the only surviving member of the expedition, Bruno and 18 of his his companions were beheaded on February 14, 1009. Duke Boleslaus brought the bodies to Poland; it is said that Braunsberg is named after Bruno. They were laid probably in Przemyśl south-east of Poland where historians place Bruno's diocese. Soon after his death Bruno and his companions were revered as martyrs and Saint Bruno was canonized. Annals of the monastery of Quedlinburg recorded the story; it was the first time the name of Lithuania was mentioned in written sources.

* St. Bruno of Querfurt in the Catholic Encyclopedia