Six Saints Who Could Kick Your Ass

From cracked.com I think my favorite is number 5, Vladimir of Kiev: Saint with 800 Wives and a Viking Army.

"Yeah, this guy had his own army of Vikings. We could probably stop right there.

Before becoming a saint, Vladimir Svyatoslavich enjoyed a career as a marauding pagan. One day he decided he wanted to be the Grand Prince of Kiev, so he amassed the aforementioned army of Vikings to go storm the city and depose the asshole who currently held the title (his brother).

Along the way he decided getting married might be fun and he sent some people to ask for the daughter of a nearby royal. After all, isn't that the time when men first start to think about settling down? When storming across Europe with hordes of Vikings to kill their own brother?

Sadly, the would-be bride declined the offer so he took a detour, killed her father and married her by force. Presumably there was a break for a nice dinner and some dancing before he got back to the task at hand and killed his brother, becoming ruler of Kiev.

Over the years he expanded his territory and his inventory of boobies, reportedly taking somewhere in the neighborhood of 800 concubines and several more wives.

So how does a guy like that become a saint? Well, the neighbors who he hadn't taken over kept badgering him about abandoning his pagan ways and adopting some manner of respectable religion. After deciding that Islam's stance on pork and booze wasn't to his liking, he settled on Christianity, mostly because it offered him some decent political footing in the area.

He was baptized and, possibly so they wouldn't make fun of him, had everyone else in Kiev baptized too. Thus they were heathens no more, and Vladimir secured himself a position as a saint. He may or may not have celebrated by grabbing each of the 1,600-plus boobies at his disposal."