Saint Ansgar (Oscar) and his missionary message

Joachim Nowak

Dortmund

Abstract

Ansgar was born in Picardy on September 8th 801. He was the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen and the apostle of the northern countries. As a child he was given to the Benedictine Abbey of Corbie. In 823 Ansgar was sent together with the other monks to Neu Corbie in Westphalia, where the local community entrusted him to introduce a system of education and pastoral care. He was also a convent school teacher there. Ansgar was assigned to the Danish King Harald Klak on an expedition and worked as a missionary in Denmark. Emperor Louis the Pious entrusted him with the mission in Sweden in 829. In 831 he was back with a mission from the Swedish King to the emperor. Pope Gregory IV, afterwards the archbishopric approval of Hamburg, founded by Louis the Pious, settled Ansgar there and appointed him as his legate for the Saxons, Danes and Swedes in 834. When Hamburg was destroyed by the Normans in 845 Ansgar moved his headquarters to Bremen. Then in 864 he obtained the new Hamburg-Bremen metropolis approval from Pope Nicholas I. Later Ansgar resumed his mission in Denmark and returned to Sweden (852–853), to get King Olaf and the people’s favour for his mission. Ansgar died on February 3rd 865 in Bremen. Since 1982 his relics have been in the Cathedral of Hildesheim. He was a deeply spirited man who loved prayer and seclusion, but at the same time very open to missionary service. Ansgar’s missionary can be a model of apostolic courage for continuous questioning about the Lord’s will.

Keywords:

Saint Ansgar, the missionary, faith, stabilization of life, courage missionary