Ansgar of Bremen
Picard monk called the Apostle of the North, first Christian missionary to Denmark and Sweden.
- Early Middle Ages
- Germany
- Feast day February 3
- 801 – 865
- Bishop
- Missionary
- Monk
Listen to the life 0:44
Formed at Corbie and then Corvey, Ansgar was sent in 826 to the Danish king Harald, then to Sweden, where he built at Birka the country's first church. Archbishop of Hamburg, he saw his city razed by the Vikings in 845 and his work almost annihilated; he began again from the see of Bremen. He bought Danish slaves in order to instruct them, and it is reported that to one who praised his miracles he replied that he would ask for only one: to become a good man. His mission barely outlived him, and it took two centuries for Scandinavia to become Christian — but the beginning was his.
