Gerfrid of Münster

Gerfrid was bishop of Münster from 809 to 839 and abbot of Werden from 827 to 839, and died on 12 September 839. He is a saint of the Roman Catholic Church, with commemoration on 12 September. Our sources give no Orthodox act of canonization; we present him as a hierarch of the undivided Church in the West.

He belonged to the kin of Liudger, from a noble Frisian family, being his nephew. The earliest report of him is from the year 801: he is mentioned as a cleric in a document of the Werden monastery, which shows that he belonged to Liudger's church circle before becoming bishop. After Liudger's death, on 26 March 809, Gerfrid became the second bishop in the history of Münster. According to the modern scholarly series Germania Sacra, he held the see from 809 to 839.

Relatively few written testimonies of his work have survived, but those preserved show that he continued the organization of the diocese of Münster founded by Liudger. His episcopate fell in the time of the emperor Louis the Pious, when the Church of the Saxon and Westphalian lands was ever more closely incorporated into the system of the Carolingian Empire. He took part in church assemblies and kept contact with the imperial court. He probably attended the councils of Aachen in 817 and of Diedenhofen (today Thionville) in 821. He was also at the court of Louis the Pious at Aachen in 819, and is then mentioned in connection with the imperial court in 826, 829 and 838. Researchers see in this evidence of a closer connection of Gerfrid with Carolingian imperial power than was characteristic of his predecessor Liudger. Thus he can be seen not only as head of a local diocese but also as a churchman incorporated in the political and church system of the Carolingian Empire.

In 827 he became abbot of the monastery of Werden on the Ruhr, founded by Liudger. He remained at once bishop of Münster and head of the Werden monastery until his death in 839. The official chronicle of the city of Essen shows him as abbot of Werden from 827 to 839. Werden had a special place in the history of Liudger's family: after the death of the founder, the monastery was led in succession by his relatives. First the abbot was Liudger's brother, Hildegrim I, then Gerfrid, and later other relatives, among them Altfrid.

He died on 12 September 839 at Münster, but was buried in the monastery of Werden, beside the tomb of Saint Liudger. His liturgical commemoration in the Roman Catholic Church is on 12 September, the day of his death.