Saint Ansgar
Bishop
- Feast Day
- February 3
- Life
- 801–865
- Order
- Order of Saint Benedict (OSB)
- Born
- Amiens, France
Anskar (Ansgarius) was born September 8, 801, near Amiens in Picardy, and was educated at the abbey of Corbie, where he made his monastic profession. About 822 he was sent to the daughter monastery of Corvey (Nova Corbeia) in Saxony, founded to support the Christianization of the recently subjugated Saxons.
In 826 King Harald of Denmark, baptized at Mainz, asked Emperor Louis the Pious for missionaries. Ansgar was chosen and traveled with Harald into Denmark. In 829 King Bjorn of Sweden likewise sought a Christian preacher, and Ansgar with his companion Witmar went to Birka on Lake Malar, where they founded the first Christian community in Sweden. About 831 Pope Gregory IV established the new Archbishopric of Hamburg as a missionary see for the North; Ansgar was consecrated its first archbishop and named papal legate for the Scandinavian and Slavic peoples north of the empire.
His mission suffered a severe setback in 845, when Vikings under Horik of Denmark sacked Hamburg. The destroyed see was joined to the older Diocese of Bremen, of which Ansgar became archbishop. From Bremen he resumed his mission, returning twice to Denmark and Sweden and obtaining royal protection for Christian preaching.
His biographer Rimbert, his disciple and successor, wrote the Vita Anskarii within a generation of his death, providing the principal historical source for his life. Ansgar died at Bremen on February 3, 865. The General Roman Calendar inscribes his Optional Memorial on the date of his death; he is honored as Apostle of the North.
Ansgar's mission marks the beginning of the evangelization of Scandinavia, completed only in subsequent generations. His own work was largely undone in his lifetime by Viking raids and by the resilience of the old religion, but the institutional structures he laid (the see of Hamburg-Bremen, the missionary networks from Corbie and Corvey) made the later Christianization of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway possible. He is a model of mission accepted without measurable success in one's own lifetime.
Patronages
Denmark · Iceland · Scandinavia
Catholic Churches Named After Saint Ansgar
20 parishes on Catholic Church Times share Saint Ansgar's name. Find their Mass times, confession schedules, and adoration hours:
- Saint Ansgar Catholic Church — Saint Ansgar, IA
- Sankt Ansgar
- St. Ansgar
- Sankt Ansgar — München
- St. Ansgar — Schneverdingen
- St. Ansgar — Berlin
- Sankt Ansgar — Hamburg
- Sankt Ansgar — Hamburg
- Klosterkirche Sankt Ansgar
- Sankt Ansgar
- Sankt Ansgar — Schleswig
- St. Ansgar
- Pfarrkirche Sankt Ansgar — Itzehoe
- Sankt Ansgar — Meldorf
- St. Ansgar — Bassum
- St. Ansgar — Wolfenbüttel
- Sankt Ansgar
- Sankt Ansgar — Bremerhaven
- Sankt Ansgar — Gnoien
- St. Ansgar — Seelze
Sources