Adalwin of Salzburg

Adalwin was archbishop of Salzburg from 859 to 873 and abbot of the monastery of Saint Peter in that city, in the days of the Carolingian empire. He is not a saint of the Orthodox Church: he has no Orthodox canonization and does not appear in the menaion calendar. Our sources know him as a churchman of the Western Church, honoured among Catholics on 26 May, and known above all as an opponent of Saints Cyril and Methodius. This page remembers him for his part in their story.

Archbishop of Salzburg

He was educated at Salzburg and served as archpriest of the church at Moosburg, then came under the patronage of Archbishop Liupram, who recommended him to King Louis the German as his successor. He became archbishop in 859. The next year he received the pallium from Pope Nicholas I in Rome, and gained from the king grants of land in what is today Lower Austria, Carinthia, Styria, Burgenland, Slovenia and Hungary. One source says the king thanked him for his work with many gifts.

He laboured with persistence to convert the Slavs of Carantania and Pannonia and laid ecclesiastical claim to Great Moravia. His mission followed in the wake of Louis's armies and was paid for out of conquered lands. In the principality of Pannonia he consecrated twelve new churches, among them those dedicated to Saint Stephen, the Archangel Michael, the Apostle Paul, Saint Margaret and Saint Lawrence, and placed a priest in each. He entrusted Pannonia to Altfrid, who had good relations with Prince Kocel.

Against Methodius

From 866 he came up against the work of the Byzantine brothers Cyril and Methodius and blamed them for the Slavonic liturgy. When Pope Adrian II named Methodius archbishop of Moravia and Pannonia, Adalwin, together with Bishop Ermanrich of Passau, seized him and held him, according to our sources, for three and a half years in a monastery in Swabia, where he was ill-⁠treated. One source places the arrest around the year 870.

To strengthen his claims, Adalwin had a work composed, the History of the Conversion of the Bavarians and Carantanians, an important source for the early history of the archdiocese of Salzburg. In 873, at the command of Pope John VIII, who did not want Salzburg to grow too strong and wished to place Moravia and Pannonia directly under Rome, he had to release Methodius. Ermanrich was suspended from his see.

His death

Adalwin died on 14 May 873, according to some sources, while another says only that he died not long after the release of Methodius. He was succeeded by Adalbert I. One Russian source gives 26 May as his feast in the Catholic calendar, and our sources show no other veneration.