VOLFANGO (WOLFGANO), saint. – Benedictine, bishop of Ratisbon and abbot of S. Emmeram, born ca. 924 in Swabia and died at Pupping (Upper Austria) on 30 October 994.
He received a thorough education, first at the abbey of Reichenau, then (from 950) at the cathedral school of Würzburg. In 956 Henry of Babenberg, archbishop of Trier, placed him at the head of his cathedral school and made him prefect of the clerics. After the archbishop’s death (965), V. Einsiedeln, where he was ordained a priest (968). He undertook a missionary expedition to Hungary, but remained there only one year (970–71), with little success, because of a jurisdictional dispute with the bishop of Passau, Pilgrim. On his return from Hungary, he was appointed by Emperor Otto I abbot of S. Emmeram and bishop of Ratisbon (972), and was consecrated by the metropolitan Frederick I of Salzburg on 1 or 6 January 973.
His pastoral and civil activity (as a prince of the Empire) was among the most fruitful. He devoted himself fervently to spiritual and material reconstruction, promoting the reform of monasteries, founding new ones and restoring those that had fallen into decay or been devastated, erecting churches and castles, and building villages; he worked extensively to raise the level of education and culture not only among the clergy and monks but also among the people. An indefatigable preacher, he travelled throughout the diocese and across the vast eastern regions (the future Austria), where his see possessed many estates. In 973 he separated Bohemia from the jurisdiction of Ratisbon, establishing the bishopric of Prague there, an act that encouraged the rapid Christianization of the Bohemian people. In 975 he brought about a clear separation between the episcopal see and the monastery of S. Emmeram. When the revolt of the duke of Bavaria, Henry II, known as «Zänker», broke out (974), V., who had remained loyal to Emperor Otto II, was forced to flee and withdrew to the distant abbey of Mondsee, which was later to become the centre of his cult. During an inspection journey along the Danube, he died at Pupping and was buried in the crypt of the monastery of S. Emmeram in Ratisbon. There, on 7 October 1052, his solemn canonization took place through the agency of Leo IX.
The centre of his cult, however, was established (around 1200) near Mondsee. In a solitary and picturesque spot on the Abersee, which later took the name Wolfgangsee, there stood a small church of S. John, believed by the people to have been built by the Saint at the place where he had lived in solitude; indeed, he was said to have erected it with Satan’s effective assistance. The first record of the little church dates from 1183; by 1194 it already bore the name of s. V.; in 1315 a large house for pilgrims was built there; from 1330 to 1350 the church was enlarged, but it was destroyed by fire in 1429. The abbots of Mondsee then saw to the construction of the magnificent two-naved Gothic church, with a spacious choir, which still survives and contains the grandiose Gothic altar in carved, gilded, and painted wood, a masterpiece by Michael Pacher and the fruit of ten years’ work (1471–1481). In the Baroque period (1675–76), another great sculptor, Thomas Schwanthaler, erected in the middle of the church the other masterpiece, the double altar of s. V. Holy Family. The pilgrimage to St. Wolfgang, as the entire locality later came to be called, was among the most celebrated in central Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries.