Francis of Assisi and stigmata

I know little about Francis of Assisi (of the Roman Catholic Church) and have recently been curious to read more about him since he is such a well-known figure. Coincidentally I just came across an essay entitled: "A Comparison of the Mysticism of Francis of Assisi With That of St. Seraphim of Sarov". I have only breezed through it so far, and it sounds interesting. Here is a snippet:

"The experience (stigmatisation) of Francis of Assisi is remarkable and of singular interest to Orthodox Christians, since as mentioned above, nothing similar is encountered in the experience of the Orthodox Church with a long line of ascetics, and equally long history of mystical experiences. As a matter of fact, all of the things Francis experienced in the process of his stigmatisation are the very beguilements the Church Fathers repeatedly warned against!"

I was surprised to learn that he experienced stigmatisation (was he the first?). I guess I was surprised just because I kind of forgot that it exists not only in movies, plus I have never given stigmata much of a thought since it is not something that occurs in Orthodoxy.

The first thing that came to mind when I read that Francis wanted to experience Christ's earthly sufferings was the story of an Orthodox saint who prayed that God would find him worthy to suffer as a martyr throughout his life--oxymoron?--yes and no because he was tortured *almost to death regularly for something like 60 yrs of his life. They would literally rip apart of his body one day, and overnight he would be completely healed. The next day the cycle would begin again until that leader would grow frustrated/embarrassed and pass him off to a new court where they devised new ways of trying to kill him. Through witnessing his faith and sufferings, many were saved. He suffered for the sake of Christ and His Church.

Anyway, I look forward to reading the whole thing very soon.