Fourteen Holy Helpers

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The Fourteen Holy Helpers are a group of saints venerated together in Roman Catholicism because prayer to them was thought to be particularly effective, especially against various diseases. This group of Nothelfer originated in the 14th century at first in the Rhineland, largely as a result of the epidemic (probably of bubonic plague) that became known as the Black Death.

At the heart of the Fourteen were three virgin martyrs:

Sankt Margaretha mit dem Wurm,

Sankt Barbara mit dem Turm,

Sankt Katharina mit dem Radl,

das sind die heiligen drei Madl.

("Saint Margaret with the dragon; Saint Barbara with the tower; Saint Catherine with the wheel; those are the three holy maids.")

The Fourteen saints are:

Achatius (or Acacius) (May 8th), martyr, invoked against headache
Barbara (December 4th), virgin and martyr, invoked against fever and sudden death
Blaise (also Blase and Blasius) (February 3rd), bishop and martyr, invoked against illness of the throat
Catherine of Alexandria (November 25th), virgin and martyr, invoked against sudden death
Christopher (Christophorus) (July 25th), martyr, invoked against bubonic plague

The Vierzehnheiligen, by Balthasar Neumann.
Cyriacus (Cyriac) (August 8th), deacon and martyr, invoked against temptation on the death-bed
Denis (Dionysius) (October 9th), bishop and martyr, invoked against headache
Erasmus (Saint Elmo) (June 2nd), bishop and martyr, invoked against intestinal ailments
Eustachius (Eustace, Eustathius) (September 20th), martyr, invoked against family discord
George (April 23rd), soldier-martyr, for the health of domestic animals
Giles (Aegidius) (September 1st), hermit and abbot, invoked against plague, for a good confession
Margaret of Antioch (July 20th), virgin and martyr, invoked in childbirth
Pantaleon (July 27th), bishop and martyr, for physicians
Vitus (also known as Saint Guy) (June 15th), martyr, invoked against epilepsy

For one or another of the saints in the original set, Anthony the Anchorite, Leonard of Noblac, Nicholas, Sebastian, Apollonia, or Roch were sometimes substituted.

While each has a separate feast day, the Fourteen Holy Helpers are honored together on August 8. Barbara, Catherine of Alexandria, Christopher, and Margaret of Antioch were dropped from the list of saints for universal veneration in the reform of the Roman Catholic liturgy in 1969 by Pope Paul VI. In 2004, Pope John Paul II reinstated the Feast of St Catherine of Alexandria, the voice to St. Joan of Arc, as an optional memorial on November 25.

[edit] The Vierzehnheiligen

Basilica Vierzehnheiligen

The fourteen holy helpers are honored in Bavaria as the vierzehn heiligen, to whom the Rococo pilgrimage church in the hamlet of Bad Staffelstein near Bamberg, designed by Balthasar Neumann (built –1774) is dedicated. On September 24, 1445 the Franciscan monastery’s young shepherd, Hermann Leicht, saw a crying child in a field—one that happened to belong to the nearby Cistercian monastery of Langheim. As he bent down to pick it up, it suddenly disappeared. A short time later, the child reappeared in the same spot and this time, two candles were burning next to it. In June 1446 the shepherd saw the child a third time, this time carrying a red cross on its chest and accompanied by thirteen children. The child said to the shepherd: ‘We are the 14 helpers and wish to erect a chapel here, where we can rest. If you will be our servant, we will be yours!’ Shortly after, the shepherd saw two burning candles descending to this spot. Soon, miraculous healings began, through the intervention of the fourteen helper saints.

Detail of Grünewald alterpiece

The Franciscan brothers in the monastery erected a chapel, which immediately attracted pilgrims. An altar was consecrated as early as 1448. Pilgrimages to Vierzehnheiligen continue to take place each year between May and October.

The most famous group portrait of the "Fourteen Saints" is the altarpiece of 1503 painted by Matthias Grünewald for the monastery at Bindlach, near Bayreuth in Upper Franconia, the heartland of the Holy Helpers. As the cultus spread, Pope Nicholas V attached indulgences to devotion of the Fourteen Holy Helpers in the 16th century, though these no longer apply.

The "Fourteen angels" of the lost children's prayer in Engelbert Humperdinck's "fairy opera" Hansel und Gretel are the Fourteen Helpers. The English words are quite familiar:

"When at night I go to asleep,

Fourteen angels watch do keep,

Two upon my right hand,

Two upon my left hand.

Two who warmly cover

Two who o'er me hover,

Two to whom 'tis given

To guide my steps to heaven."