Zoltán Meszlényi
Hungarian bishop
Feast: 4 March (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)
Who they were
Zoltán Lajos Meszlényi was born on 2 January 1892 into a family of solid Catholic tradition, took doctorates in philosophy and theology at the Gregorian University, and on 28 October 1937 was consecrated auxiliary bishop of Esztergom.
Arrested without trial by the communist regime, he was held at Recsk and then in isolation at the Kistarcsa camp near Budapest. After eight months of cruel imprisonment, hunger, cold, forced labour and torture, he died on 4 March 1951, killed in hatred of Jesus, the Gospel and the Church.
The miracles
As a martyr, beatified without a miracle.
Why that counted as sanctity
A bishop starved and tortured to death for his faith in a communist camp.
The cause
The cause continues. No postulation address is published here yet. Favours received through this person’s intercession, and offers of help, are best sent to the religious order or congregation they belonged to, or to the diocese where the cause was opened; either will pass them to the postulation.
- Dicastery for the Causes of Saints - biography: Zoltán Ludovico Meszlényi
- Wikidata Q545358 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
- English Wikipedia — Zoltán Meszlényi (CC BY-SA)
Checked against the sources listed on 21 September 2026. Corrections welcome.