Feast day: July 2

St. Otto of Bamberg

Bishop · c. 1060–1139

Patron of Pomerania

A German bishop and able statesman who twice journeyed into pagan Pomerania and, by patience and generosity rather than force, won the whole region to the faith.

Otto was born about 1060 into a noble Swabian family and rose through ability and learning to high office, becoming chancellor to the Emperor Henry IV and, in 1102, bishop of the great German see of Bamberg. He governed it for nearly four decades as one of the ablest churchmen of his age, a builder of monasteries and a reformer of his clergy.

His era was torn by the long and bitter conflict between popes and emperors over who should appoint bishops — the Investiture Controversy. Otto, who owed his see to the emperor yet was loyal to the Church, laboured patiently as a mediator between the two powers and helped bring about the compromise that finally ended the quarrel.

But he is best remembered as the 'Apostle of Pomerania.' Twice, in the 1120s, he undertook arduous and dangerous missionary journeys into that still-pagan land along the Baltic, at the invitation of its duke. Where an earlier missionary had failed, Otto succeeded, baptizing many thousands and founding churches, winning the people by his dignity, generosity, and tact.

He died at Bamberg in 1139 and was canonized in 1189. He is honoured as the apostle and patron of Pomerania, the bishop who carried the faith to the shores of the Baltic.

Where armed crusades had failed, he baptized tens of thousands by going unarmed, learning the people's needs, and earning the name 'Apostle of Pomerania.'

Image: Wolfgang Sauber (CC BY-SA 4.0), via Wikimedia Commons.

Source: newadvent.org/cathen/11353a.htm