Adalbert, Archbishop of Magdeburg

Saint Adalbert (died 20 June 981), sometimes known as the Apostle of the Slavs, was the first Archbishop of Magdeburg (from 968) and a successful missionary to the Slavic peoples to the east of Germany. He was later canonised; his feast day is June 20.

Adalbert, possibly born in Alsace, was a German monk at the Benedictine Monastery of Saint Maximinus in Trier. He was consecrated a bishop and in 961 he was sent to Kievan Rus. Princess Olga of Kiev had asked emperor Otto the Great to provide her with a missionary. Her son, Svyatoslav opposed her and took her crown from her as soon as Adalbert arrived in Kievan Rus. Adalbert's mission companions were slain and Adalbert was barely able to escape. Kievan Rus subsequently accepted conversion from Constantinople.

Upon escaping, Adalbert traveled to Mainz, where he became abbot of Wissembourg in Alsace. Once there, he worked to improve the education of the monks. He later became archbishop of Magdeburg, a city in Saxony.

The archbishoprics of Hamburg and Bremen had been created with the intent that they would act as bases for missionary activity in Northern and Eastern Europe. The Archbishopric of Magdeburg was now designated to provide missionary programs for the Eastern European Slavs. Adalbert also established dioceses at Naumburg, Meißen, Merseburg, Brandenburg, Havelberg and Poznań in Poland. A student in Adalbert's time who went on to do important work among the Slavs was Vojtěch of Prague, later canonized as Saint Adalbert of Prague.

Adalbert was a French pseudo-mystic who claimed he could foretell the future and read thoughts. The Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology reveals that “[H]e was in the habit of giving away parings of his nails and locks of his hair as powerful amulets [charms used to drive away evil]. He is said to have even set up an altar in his own name.” Adalbert eventually showed followers a letter supposedly sent to him by Christ via St. Michael. He also invoked demons using mystical prayers he had composed. The Church convicted him of sorcery in 744-745 A.D., and condemned him to perpetual imprisonment in the monastery of Fulda.^[1]

A sympathetic discussion of Adalbert’s plight can be found in the writings of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), founder of Theosophy, an occult blending of metaphysical thought, spiritualism, channeling, science, Eastern philosophy, Transcendentalism and mental healing. Blavatsky, who greatly helped to spread the concepts of Buddhism and reincarnation in America, wrote the following about Adalbert in her article “Star-Angel-Worship”:

In the middle of the VIIIth century of the Christian era the very notorious Archbishop Adalbert of Magdeburg, famous as few in the annals of magic, appeared before his judges. He was charged with, and ultimately convicted—by the second Council of Rome presided over by Pope Zacharia—of using during his performances of ceremonial magic, the names of the “seven Spirits”—then at the height of their power in the Church—among others, that of URIEL, with the help of whom he had succeeded in producing his greatest phenomena. As can be easily shown, the church is not against magic proper, but only against those magicians who fail to conform to her methods and rules of evocation. However, as the wonders wrought by the Right Reverend Sorcerer were not of a character that would permit of their classification among “miracles by the grace, and to the glory of God,” they were declared unholy.^[2]

External Links

• http://www.catholic-forum.com/Saints/sainta3f.htm
• http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=1113
• http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1O100-AdalbertofMagdeburg.html
• Attwater, Donald and Catherine Rachel John. The Penguin Dictionary of Saints. 3rd edition. New York: Penguin Books, 1993. ISBN 0-140-51312-4.

References

This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.

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