Uniquely amongst Catholic saints, the statue of the Bohemian St John of Nepomuk has 5 stars on its halo. Catholic tradition usually portrays the Virgin Mary with stars (and all others with a simple halo), so what’s the story here?

The famous statue of St John of Nepomuk is on the north side of Prague’s Charles Bridge, close to the spot where he drowned in the river Vltava.

The statue of St Christopher on the Charles Bridge is also loaded with meaning.

John lived during the times of King Wenceslas IV in the 14th century. (Don’t confuse this king with ‘Good King Wenceslas’ from the Christmas Carol. That was his ancestor from the 9th century).

Wenceslas suspected that his second wife – Queen Sophia, the cousin of his first wife – was having an affair. Eager to find out the truth, and knowing that she was a pious person, the King figured that if anyone would know, it would be her confessor.

John, the Archbishop of Prague, was her confessor. When confronted by the jealous King, he refused to break his vows to reveal what the Queen had said to him. Enraged by this, the King had John tortured. The King’s men bundled John’s body into a sack and threw it into the river. This spot is marked close to his statue on the bridge.

The Catholic church regards him as one of the first saints who defended the seal of the Confessional. The Catholic Church reveres him for this. As Archbishop, John always pledged allegiance to Rome but the King supported the Avignon papacy at the time. This led to claims that St John was the first to resist secular interference in religious matters.

Whatever the true story, this still doesn’t explain the 5 stars on the halo.

Local lore has it that when locals found John’s body it was through the reflection of 5 stars glittering in the water. In those days many stars would have been reflected in the surface of the water, so this sounds like superstition. The 5 stars in the halo also represent the letters from the Latin word ‘TACUI’ (“[I remained] silent”)

I suppose it’s good that Latin is a concise language; had John lived in Wales, the halo would have been much more complicated!

Update

Apparently, this legend is not all it seems to be. I discovered some new information at an exhibition at the Prague Castle. John was a notary in the office of the Archbishop, and not the archbishop himself. King Wenceslas and the bishop had an argument of sorts. The king arrested several of the bishop’s staff, including John. They were tortured and killed. The king’s soldiers drowned John in the river.

Later the legend I wrote about above started to spread.