Zofia Czeska

Zofia Czeska-Maciejowska (1584 – 1 April 1650) was a Polish religious sister and the founder of the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Czeska was widowed prior to her call into the religious life. Her beatification was celebrated on 9 June 2013.

Life Zofia Czeska-Maciejowska was born in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1584 as one of nine children to Mateusz Maciejowska and Katarzyna Lubowiecka; one sister younger than her was Anna.

She opened her home in Krakow to local girls and founded a school named the ‘Maiden's House of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary’ - this was the first formally organised girls' school in Poland. The order works in schools, colleges, kindergartens and orphanages. It was concluded its business on 20 November 1997; during the process the formal assent to the cause was granted under Pope John Paul II on 2 June 1995 and granted the use of the title of Servant of God after the official "nihil obstat" was granted. The process was validated on 30 March 1998 and the Positio was sent to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome in 2005 for assessment. Historians approved the cause on 14 March 2006 as did the theologians on 25 February 2011 and the C.C.S. on 7 June 2011.

On 27 June 2011 she was proclaimed to be Venerable after Pope Benedict XVI found that she had lived a life of heroic virtue. The miracle for her beatification was investigated from 5 September 2003 until 9 January 2004; it was validated later on 4 July 2008. A medical board approved it on 31 May 2012 as did theologians on 6 October 2012 and the C.C.S. on 10 December 2012. Benedict XVI signed a decree that recognized a miracle attributed to her on 20 December 2012. Cardinal Angelo Amato - on the behalf of Pope Francis - celebrated the beatification on 9 June 2013 in Kraków. The postulator for this cause is Sr. Maria Renata Gąsior.