ADALBERTO, archbishop of MAGDEBURG. - Benedictine, of Lorraine origin. Sent in 961 by William, archbishop of Mainz and son of Otto I, as a missionary bishop to the Russian people, he returned the following year, having failed in the task entrusted to him. In 966 he was elected abbot of Weissenburg in Alsace, and in 968 the first archbishop of Magdeburg, when this see was established by Otto as the center of the German eastern mission among the Slavs beyond the Elbe. A learned man, an exemplary pastor, he worked greatly for the conversion of the Wends. He died on 20 June 981 during a pastoral visit to Zscherben near Merseburg, and was buried in the cathedral of Magdeburg. He did not receive public cult, and is missing from the Roman Martyrology, but is numbered among the saints by many authors.
A. is the author of the continuation of the Chronicle of Regino of Prüm, for the years 907-67 (MGH, Script., I, pp. 613-29).