VIRGILIO, abbot-bishop of SANKT PETER OF SALZBURG, saint. — V. (thus Latinized), or Fergil (Feregii), of Irish origin, b. ca. 700, d. 27 Nov. 784.
A monk, and later abbot at Aghaboe, he acquired a broad education, including scientific learning, especially in mathematics and geography. Following in the footsteps of so many Irish-Scottish monks, in 743 he went to the Frankish kingdom, to Pepin, and in 745 proceeded to Bavaria, to Duke Odilo. At the death of the abbot-bishop of Salzburg, John, the latter sent him there as abbot of the monastery of Sankt Peter and at the same time bishop of Salzburg. V., still a deacon, made use of an itinerant bishop for episcopal functions. Only in 755 (according to others, in 767) did he receive consecration. His government was among the most important of the early bishops of Salzburg. He had controversies with St. Boniface over liturgical and doctrinal questions, but succeeded in defending himself. Although he was abbot of St. Peter, he built a separate cathedral, a grandiose structure destroyed in the 16th century, consecrated on 24 Sept. 744, and established a chapter there (a prelude to the separation between St. Peter and the bishopric). For the deeper penetration of Christianity, he founded, or encouraged the foundation of, Benedictine monasteries, such as Mondsee (748), Mattsee (before 784), Innichen (now S. Candido in Alto Adige, 769), and Kremsmünster (777), which were entrusted with the mission toward the East. More important was his undertaking of the mission among the Slavs of Carantania (Carinthia), where he established a chorepiscopate, preparing Salzburg (v.). V. was also the first author of the famous «Verbrüderungsbuch» of St. Peter, that is, a catalogue of monasteries and churches spiritually affiliated with one another, which remained in use until the 13th century, containing more than 8,000 names, and constituting one of the oldest and most renowned books of this kind (ed. by S. Herzberg-Frankel, in MGH, Micrologia, II, Berlin 1890-1904). He was buried in the cathedral of Salzburg. In 1233 Gregory IX canonized him. The relics now rest together with those of St. Rupert beneath the high altar of the new cathedral, where they were transferred in 1628.