Saint Rupert

Rupert was the son of Chrodbert, chancellor of King Clothar III, and of Theodrada: he came from the Robertians, a family of counts who ruled over the middle and upper Rhine. He was trained in Worms and became its bishop. Then he left everything. He felt called to itinerant preaching, and when Duke Theodo II of Bavaria asked him to come to him, he gave up his bishop’s chair and set out. It was around the year 700. He preached in Regensburg, which was then the capital of Bavaria, and in Lorch, and it went well for him everywhere. With the duke’s permission and protection he founded first a church dedicated to Saint Peter on Lake Wallersee, at Seekirchen, and then a monastery near the ruins of the Roman town of Juvavum, on the Salzach river: Saint Peter’s Abbey, the oldest monastery in the entire German-speaking world, which is still there and still active. Around that monastery he refounded the city. Juvavum came back to life under another name — Salzburg — and Rupert was both its bishop and its abbot, assisted by twelve companions who had come from his homeland. He died in Salzburg on March 27, 718. He is called the apostle of Bavaria and Carinthia, and he is the patron of Salzburg and of salt, which made that city rich. If your name is Rupert or Robert, today is your name day.