Hermann Stępień
Hermann Stępień was a Polish Roman Catholic martyr.
Early life
Karol Stępień was born into a poor family on 21 October 1910, in Łódź, Poland.Stępień was educated in Łódź. He attended the Franciscan seminary in Lviv, graduating in 1929. He then attended the Pontifical University of St. Bonaventure in Rome. He was ordained as a Franciscan priest in 1937 in Rome, taking the religious name "Hermann". Stępień returned to Poland, where he earned a Master's degree in Theology from Lviv University.
Vocation
Stępień served as a Francisco priest in Radomsko and Vilnius. In 1940, he was asked by Bishop Kazimierz Bukraba of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pinsk to go to Piaršai to help their parish priest, Achille Puchala.When the Nazis invaded in 1943, Stępień decided to stay and keep preaching. He declared: "Pastors cannot leave the believers!"