Thank you to all those who offered thoughts and suggestions regarding the identity of the person portrayed in my post from a couple of days ago, here. Please do read the comments from readers on that post, which appeared on Tuesday.
Many were opting for Polish Jesuits and they may be correct. One reader wrote to me directly with a different idea. He thought he may be a martyr from the Slovak Republic. Here is an excerpt from his letter:
In regard to the identity of the saint, I think it is one of the Kosice Martyrs - possibly St. Istvan Pongracz. I don't think it is Polish writing, but rather either Slovakian or Hungarian which is where the Kosice Martyrs are venerated. The reason I think this is that the Slovakian translation is close to “follow us”- thanks Google- and this seems to be appropriate for martyrs.
He attached the following images, and for comparison, I give you the original image of the statue at the bottom.
So which is it - I don’t know. Whether Polish, Slovakian or Spanish I think we have enough viable options so that if this was our statue we could transform it into one of the Jesuits who have been suggested.
