WOLFGANG (Wolfgango), Saint. - Benedictine, bishop of Regensburg and abbot of St. Emmeram, b. around
924 in Swabia and d. at Pupping (Upper Austria) on 30 October 994.
He received a careful education, first at the abbey of Reichenau, then (from 950) at the school of the cathedral of Würzburg. In 956 Henry of Babenberg, archbishop of Trier, wanted him as head of his own cathedral school and prefect of the clerics. After the archbishop's death (965), V. withdrew to the monastery of Einsiedeln, where he was ordained a priest (968). He undertook a missionary expedition to Hungary; but he remained there only one year (970-71), and with scant results, because of a jurisdictional conflict with the bishop of Passau, Pilgrim. Having returned from Hungary, he was appointed by the emperor Otto I abbot of St. Emmeram and bishop of Regensburg (972), and was consecrated by the metropolitan Frederick I of Salzburg on 1 or 6 January 973.
His activity, both pastoral and civil (as prince of the Empire), was among the most fruitful. He devoted himself with zeal to spiritual and material reconstruction, promoting the reform of monasteries, founding new ones and repairing those that had fallen into decay or been devastated, erecting churches and castles, building villages; he worked hard to raise the level of instruction and culture not only among the clergy and monks, but also among the people. A tireless preacher, he traveled throughout the diocese and through the vast eastern regions (the future Austria), where his see held many possessions. In 973 he separated Bohemia from the jurisdiction of Regensburg, erecting there the bishopric of Prague, a gesture that favored the rapid Christianization of the Bohemian people. In 975 he proceeded to a clear separation between the episcopal see and the monastery of St. Emmeram. When the revolt of the duke of Bavaria, Henry II, called "Zänker," broke out (974), V., having remained faithful to the emperor Otto II, had to flee and withdrew to the distant abbey of Mondsee, which was later to become the center of his cult. On an inspection journey along the Danube, he died at Pupping and was buried in the crypt of the monastery of St. Emmeram in Regensburg. There, on 7 October 1052, his solemn canonization took place through the agency of Leo IX.
The center of his cult, however, formed (around 1200) in the vicinity of Mondsee. In a solitary and picturesque spot on the Abersee, which later took the name Wolfgangsee, there was found a small church of St. John, believed by the people to have been built by the Saint on the spot where he was said to have lived in solitude — indeed, he was said to have built it with effective help from Satan. The first mention of the little church is from 1183; in 1194 it already bears the name of St. V.; in 1315 a large house for pilgrims was built there; from 1330 to 1350 the church was enlarged, and it was destroyed in 1429 by a fire. Then arose, through the care of the abbots of Mondsee, the magnificent Gothic church with two naves, with a spacious choir, which still stands and encloses the grandiose Gothic altar in carved, gilded and painted wood, a masterpiece of Michael Pacher, the fruit of ten years of work (1471-1481). In the Baroque era (1675-76) another great sculptor, Thomas Schwanthaler, erected in the middle of the church the other masterpiece, the double altar of St. V. and of the Holy Family. The pilgrimage to St. Wolfgang, as the whole place later came to be called, was among the most famous in central Europe in the 17th-18th centuries.
Bibliography8 works
Giuseppe Löw