Date: Mon, 3 Feb 92 11:07:00 EST Reply-To: GRMNHIST - German History Forum <GRMNHIST@DGOGWDG1> Sender: GRMNHIST - German History Forum <GRMNHIST@DGOGWDG1> From: WODWOSE OF WYRALE WYLDRENESSE <S08576@SIENA> Subject: Patron of Germany Dear Friend: 3.2.1992 I thought this might be appropriate for today. Auf Wieder(schreiben?), Stefan Bauman A Brief History of Saint Anskar-- Patron of Germany Archbishop of Hamburg and Bremen (A.D. 865) Feast Date: February 3 Source: Butler's Lives of Patron Saints. Edited by Michael Walsh. Harper & Row, Publishers, San Francisco, 1987 Anskar was born c. 801 of a noble family near Amiens and sent to the neighbouring monastery of Old Corbie in Picardy. It is said that there he formed a close relationship with the Emperor Charlegmagne and Pischasius Radbertus who was his tutor. A vision he had of the Virgin Mary and of the death of Charlegmagne so impressed him that he lost all youthful gaiety and thought only of preaching to the heathen as the nearest form of martyrdom. He became a monk, first at Old Corbie and afterwards at New Corbie (Corvey) in Westphalia, where he first engaged in pastoral work. Harold, King of Denmark, as a fugitive from his country, had been baptised at the court of Louis the Debonair. When he was about to return to his kingdom he took Anskar with him, as well as the monk Autbert, to convert the Danes. They were very successful, winning many to the faith and starting school, probably at Hedeby. At the invitation of Bjoern, King of Sweden, Anskar then went with several others to spread the Gospel there. In 831 King Louis named him abbot of New Corbie and first archbishop of Hamburg, to which Pope Gregory IV added the dignity of legate of the Holy See to the northern peoples. There he worked for thirteen years, organizing the missions in Denmark, Norway and Sweden as well as in North Germany, building churches and founding a library. A great incursion of heathen Northmen in 845 destroyed Hamburg, whereupon Sweden and Denmark relapsed into idolatry. Anskar still supported him desolate churches in Germany until the see of Bremen becoming vacant, Pope St. Nicholas I eventually united it with Hamburg and appointed Anskar over both. He returned to Denmark and his presence soon made the faith revive. In Sweden the superstitious King Olaf cast lots as to whether the Christian missionaries should be admitted or not. The saint grieved to see the cause of religion treated with such levity, and recommended the issue to the care of God. The lot proved favourable, and the bishop established many churches, which he left under zealous pastors before his return to Bremen. Saint Anskar had an extraordinary talent for preaching, and his charity to the poor knew no bounds; he washed their feet and waited upon them at table. When one of his disciples was loudly vaunting the miracles which the saint had wrought, Anskar rebuked him saying, 'Were I worthy of such a favour from my God, I would ask that He would grant to me this one miracle, that by His grace He would make of me a good man'. He wore a rough hair shirt and, whilst his health permitted it, lived on bread and water. As a stimulus to devotion he made a collection of short prayers, one or other of which he placed at the end of each psalm. Insertions of this kind may be found in many old manuscript psalters. He died at Bremen in the sixty-seventh year of his life and the thirty-fourth of his prelacy, and the whole North bewailed him. But although Saint Anskar was the first to preach the Gospel in Sweden, it relapsed entirely into paganism after his death. The conversion of the country was due to Saint Sigfrid and other missionaries in the eleventh century. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Up