St. Florian

(May 4th-Feast Day) - St. Florian is the patron saint of Firefighters, chimney sweeps, brewers (Austria), soap boilers (Poland) and invoked against drowning, fire and floods. Florian was an officer in the Roman Army of occupation in Austria. Florian confessed his own Christianity rather than take part in the persecution of the Faith. He was scourged twice and the skin was entirely flayed from his body before he was tossed with a millstone around his neck into the river Enns in 304 A.D. He is alleged to have extinguished a raging conflagration by pouring a single pitcher of water on it - hence his patronage to firefighters. The pitcher he is seen holding in sacred art explains his association with brewers; his death by drowning explains his being invoked against the dangers of water.