![[Blessed Anton Martin Slomsek]](saintaed.gif "Blessed Anton Martin Slomsek")
Bishop Slomsek began a campaign of patriotic education. He built new schools, encouraged Slovenian language and culture, wrote textbooks, and edited others. He founded a weekly newspaper, and published his sermons and episcopal statements. Founded the Saint Hermagoras Society publishing house to publish popular works in Slovenian. Today the region is nearly 100% literate, much of it due to Bishop Anton's good work.
19 September 1999 by Pope John Paul II at Maribor, Slovenia the first beatified Slovene
Škofijski Ordinariat
p.p. 139
Slomškov trg 19
2000 Maribor, SLOVENIA
Biographisch-Bibliographischen Kirchenlexikons deutsch Catholic Encyclopedia, by P Cyril Zupan Catholic Hierarchy.Org Katoliska Cerkev sloveniji Katoliska Cerkev english Kirken i Norge norwegian Pope John Paul II: Homily during the beatification Mass Saints Alive, Father Robert F McNamara- Blessed Anton
Teacher and educator, writer and poet, biographer and critic, lover of his mother tongue and fighter for national equality, patriot, speaker and preacher, ecumenical worker and theological teacher of the Slovene people, priest and bishop. Slomsek's personality is like a mosaic, each stone has its own colour, its own function and size, but all together provide the image of a saint, that is a person who is open to the breath of the Holy Ghost, who prophetically understands the signs of the time and responds to them, who understands how to use all natural and supernatural means to realise the kingdom of God on earth.
- Dr Franc Kramberger, Bishop of Maribor, 1999