Christian Saints

St. Francis of Assisi, painted by Giotto

From early on, Christians believed that some holy people, when they died, not only went to heaven but had the special attention of Jesus, and had special powers themselves, so that they could cure sicknesses and answer prayers of all kinds. These people were called saints. Both men and women, and often children, became saints.
It was hard to tell, of course, whether someone was going to become a saint after he died, and sometimes people disagreed about it. But generally you looked for this kind of signs: a saint would lead a very holy kind of life, and often would not marry or have children. He or she would never do anything bad. A saint would do miracles even while he or she was alive, like curing sick people or saving a city from being destroyed. And often, a saint would die some kind of special death, either being killed by bad people or being taken up to Heaven alive or something like that. After the saint died, too, the saint's bones and clothes would continue to perform miracles.

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