PILGRIM OF PASSAU

Missionary bishop, of the noble Aribo family of Bavaria; d. Pssau, May 21, 991. The nephew of Abp. Frederick of Salzburg, he was educated in the monastic school of St. Pirmin, in niederaltaich; he became bishop of Passau in 971. When Henry the Wrangler, Duke of Bavaria, rebelled against otto ii, Pilgrim remained steadfast on the side of the Emperor. As bishop he was gifted chiefly in the field of administration, as was shown in the reconstruction of churches and monasteries and in the restoration of Catholic life in great areas of his diocese, destroyed by Hungarian hordes. Pilgrim met the danger of fresh barbarian attacks by undertaking, on a grand scale, the task of converting the Hungarians to Christianity. The time was propitious, for the Germans on the west and the Byzantine Empire on the east had by then made it clear to the Hungarians that they had nothing to gain by warlike activities. The Hungarian leader, Geisa, married a Christian princess and was anxious to live in peace with his Christian neighbors. The transition from paganism was made easier by the presence in the area held by the Hungarians of two groups of Christians: a Slavonic element, a surviving remnant of the conquered population, and a Germanic group, a large number of prisoners of war brought home by the barbarians from their earlier successful expeditions. The missionaries sent by Pilgrim enabled these Christians once more to profess the Catholic faith. Not only did Pilgrim send considerable numbers of priests and monks to Hungary, but on occasion he took himself a place in their midst. He was thus in a position to send a personal account of the promising prospects to Rome. There were disappointments and setbacks, however, before the Hungarians, a generation later, were brought into the Christian fold by their own King stephen.

Pilgrim's eagerness to establish dioceses in Hungary and to attach them to Passau as their metropolitan see led him to fabricate charters (the Forgeries of Lorch), showing that Passau, through its connection with Lorch, had an ancient right to archiepiscopal status. It is possible that he busied himself with the translation of old German sagas, especially with a Latin version of the Niebelungenlied, in which a "Bishop Pilgerin" is mentioned.

Bibliography: e. l. dÜmmler, Pilgrim von Passau und das Erzbisthum Lorch (Leipzig 1854). a. hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands 3:163–180. i. zibermayr, Noricum. Baiern und Oesterreich (Horn 1956). r. bauerreiss, Kirchengeschichte Bayerns, 2 v. (St. Ottilien 1949–55) 2:142–145. j. oswald, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche ² 6:1142; 8:509.

[j. ryan]