Saint Ansgar, Bishop

Ansgar was born about 801 in northern France and became a monk at Corbie and then at Corvey in Saxony. In 826 he went to Denmark with the newly baptized king Harald, and in 829 to the trading town of Birka in Sweden, where he built the first church. About 831 he was made archbishop of Hamburg, with a mission to the peoples of the north.

In 845 Danish raiders burned Hamburg, destroying his church and library, and he moved to Bremen. He returned to Denmark and Sweden, but the Christian communities he founded did not long survive him. He died at Bremen on 3 February 865; his disciple Rimbert wrote his Life. He is called “the Apostle of the North.”