Rupert of Salzburg

Saint Rupert, hierarch, was bishop of Worms and the first bishop of Salzburg, abbot of the monastery of Saint Peter there, and is called the Apostle of the Bavarians. He is commemorated on 27 March, and in Austria on 24 September, the day of the translation of his relics to Salzburg.

Beginnings

According to tradition, Rupert came of a distinguished Frankish family, related to the Merovingian royal house. As bishop at Worms he was at first received as a wise and devout man, but the community, largely pagan, rejected him and forced him out at the end of the seventh century. Duke Theodo of Bavaria called him to his residence at Regensburg, to help spread the faith among the Bavarians. On the mission he was accompanied by Saints Chuniald and Gislar.

The mission

Rupert settled first at Altötting and began to preach to the local people. Then he sailed down the Danube, visiting towns, villages and forts, and brought many to the faith as far as the border of Bavaria with Pannonia, which lay under the rule of the Avars. He stayed for a time at Lorch, the old Lauriacum, where an early church already stood. Because conditions of war on the border made him give up plans for a mission among the Avars, he went by the Roman road to Juvavum, a ruined city, which he made the center of his work and named Salzburg. He renewed the monastic community of Saint Peter and laid the foundations of the cathedral of Salzburg, finished by his successor, Vergilius. He also founded the nunnery of Nonnberg, in which his niece Erentrude was the first abbess. He introduced higher learning and other reforms; from Duke Theodo he received estates near Piding and Reichenhall, where he supported the saltworks. His work reached also into the mountains, where, around 711, the first monastic cell was founded at Bischofshofen.

His end and veneration

It is said that he fell asleep on Easter Sunday, around 710; by other sources he returned to Worms, his city, and died there, in 717 or 718. His remains were moved to the cathedral of Salzburg by Bishop Vergilius, on 24 September 774. Rupert is the patron of the state of Salzburg, of the archdiocese there, together with Vergilius, and of the Bavarian region of Rupertiwinkel, and several places and churches bear his name.