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Icon of St.
Wolfgang, Bishop of Ratisbon (Regensburg), Germany (+ 994)
Feast:
October 31
Our
father among the Saints Wolfgang, Bishop of Ratisbon, the glorious
light of Bavaria, was born of illustrious parents about the year 934.
After studying at Reichenau and Würzburg, he led the cathedral school
at Trier, and undertook to reform the churches of the area, for which
he met with hostility. He began to live an ascetic life and after some
years became a monk at Einsiedeln, then was ordained priest by St.
Ulric of Augsburg. Together with St. Ulric and St. Conrad,
St. Wolfgang was one of the three Stars in the firmament of the
Orthodox Church in pre-Schism Germany. Wolfgang was sent as a
missionary to the pagan Magyars, and later, in 972, was made Bishop of
Ratisbon. He became the tutor to Emperor St. Henry II, was spiritual
father and mentor to several of the early 11th c. German bishops, and
restored genuine monastic life in the region. He was a zealous
preacher, and his liberality to the poor earned him the title of
"Elemosynarius Maior," that is, "The Great Almsgiver." Once, in the
midst of a political controversy, St. Wolfgang disappeared. A hunter
found him living as a hermit near a lake now called Lake St. Wolfgang,
and he returned to his see. Then, while visiting Pöchlarn in Lower
Austria, upon the Danube, the Saint took ill and reposed soon after.
His sacred relics were transported up the Danube to Ratisbon and there
enshrined. His holy life was written in 1050.
Icon by the hand of Mother
Justina, Greek Old Calendarist convent of St. Elizabeth, Etna,
California, with permission.
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