Josip Štadler

Who was Josip Štadler?

Josip Štadler was a Croatian priest, the first modern archbishop of Vrhbosna and the founder of the religious order of the Servants of the Infant Jesus. He is a candidate for sainthood.

Štadler was born in Slavonski Brod in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, Austria in what is today modern Croatia. Early in life he lost his parents. He was taken care of by the Oršić family. He started his education in Slavonski Brod, and continued it in Požega and Zagreb where he attended gymnasium. In Rome he attended the Pontifical Gregorian University where he attained a doctorate in philosophy and theology. He was ordained a priest in Rome in 1868 and returned to Zagreb. He was a gymnasium professor at a seminary and later a university professor at the Catholic Theology Faculty in Zagreb.

In 1881, the Catholic Church in Bosnia and Herzegovina was reinstated for the first time after first years of thirteen century, when the last bishop of Vrhbosna was evicted by Bosnian ban Kulin and left Bosnia for Đakovo, in Slavonia, part of Hungarian Kingdom at the time. Pope Leo XIII named Štadler as the first archbishop of Vrhbosna in Sarajevo. He worked in faith, culture and national fields. Under his direction, the Cathedral of Jesus' Heart was built, along with the seminary and church of Sts. Cyril and Methodius. In Travnik he helped build the gymnasium and seminary, as well as many churches and women's seminaries throughout the country.