Stephen Pongracz was a Jesuit priest and theologian born in the Principality of Transylvania around 1582. After joining the Society of Jesus in 1602, he studied in Austria and Bohemia before being assigned to Kassa, located in the Kingdom of Hungary. During a period of religious conflict, he and two fellow priests, Melchior Grodziecki and Marko Krizin, were captured by a Calvinist army. Refusing to renounce his Catholic faith, he was executed by beheading in September 1619.