Unni (bishop)

Saint Unni was an archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen (916–936). He died as a missionary in Birka in Sweden, where he tried to continue Ansgar's work.

According to Adam of Bremen, his body was buried in Birka, but his head was entombed in Bremen Cathedral. When the altar was taken down in 1840, a leaden plate was found with the inscription "VNNIS ARCHIEP(is)-C(opus)". After Ansgar and Rimbert of Turholt, epithetised Apostle of the North and second Apostle of the North,^[1] Unni is revered as third Apostle of the North and as Saint.^[2]

Literature

• Tegnér, Göran (1995), "Unni", Vikingatidens ABC, Swedish Museum of National Antiquities, ISBN 91-7192-984-3, retrieved 2007-08-19

Notes

1. Besides Rimbert also the missionary Sigfrid of Sweden and the Reformator Johannes Bugenhagen were each likewise honoured as second Apostle of the North. Cf. Erik Gustaf Geijer, Geschichte Schwedens [Svenska folkets historia; German]: 6 vols., Swen Peter Leffler (trl., vols. 1-3), Friedrich Ferdinand Carlson (trl., vols. 4-6) and J. E. Peterson (co-trl., vol. 4), Hamburg and Gotha: Friedrich Perthes, 1832-1887, (Geschichte der europaeischen Staaten, Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeren, Friedrich August Ukert, and (as of 1875) Wilhelm von Gieselbrecht (eds.); No. 7), vol. 1 (1832), p. 121. No ISBN.
2.  Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Hamburg". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.