Modestus (Apostle of Carantania)

Window depicting Modestus in the church of Liesing (Austria)

Modestus (c. 720 – before 772),^[1] called the Apostle of Carinthia, Apostle of Carantania, was most probably an Irish monk and the evangelizer of the Carantanians, an Alpine Slavic people in the south of present-day Austria and north-eastern Slovenia, which were among the ancestors of present-day Slovenes.

Upon the request of Prince Cheitmar or Hotimir^[2] of Carantania to evangelize his people, Modestus was dispatched around the year 755 by bishop Vergilius of Salzburg, together with four priests and a deacon "and other inferior clerks"^[3] as a missionary with the rank of "choroepiskopos", i.e. a bishop responsible for the people in the countryside without a diocese,^[4] to the Carantanians. According to sources, he built three Christian churches there: "ad Udrimas" (probably in the Judenburg area in present-day Styria), at "Liburnia", corresponding to the former Roman bishop seat of Teurnia, today's Sankt Peter im Holz near Spittal an der Drau, and a church of the Virgin Mary in an unnamed place, most probably located near the centre of the Slav principality at Karnburg (Slovene: Krnski grad), which would make it Maria Saal (Slovene: Gospa sveta) on the Zollfeld plain.

His church was thus in the immediate vicinity of the area that has served as a political and cultural centre of the region through the ages, close to:

• the Magdalensberg mountain where a large settlement dating from the Celtic Noricum kingdom is being excavated;
• the remains of Roman Virunum, capital city of the later Roman province of Noricum, at the foot of Magdalensberg;
• the Karnburg complex which served as the political centre of the Slav principality of Carantania, with the Prince's Stone (Slovene: Knežji kamen) nearby;
• the Kaiserpfalz of Karnburg, the 9th century Carolingian seat palatine of the Duke, King and Emperor Arnulf of Carinthia;
• the Duke's Chair, symbol of the legal authority in the Duchy of Carinthia of the Holy Roman Empire;
• the medieval ducal capital of Sankt Veit;
• the modern capital of the State of Carinthia, Klagenfurt.

Modestus spent the remainder of his obviously very active life in the area. The most likely year of his death was 763, although other dates also appear in sources. No traces of his church of St.Mary have been discovered. His alleged tomb is shown in the present Gothic church of Maria Saal, which was built six centuries later, replacing an earlier Romanesque church probably from the 12th century. Due to his success in converting the pagan Carantanian Slavs to Christianity, Modestus was honoured by the popular denomination "Apostle of Carinthia". His missionary work was described in the "Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum"^[5] written in Salzburg around 870, as a memorandum of the archbishops of Salzburg in a court hearing before Emperor Louis the German against bishop Method, the apostle of the Slavs in Pannonia and Moravia, at Ratisbon, (German: Regensburg) in 870. In the document, the Archdiocese of Salzburg emphasized the achievements of Modestus as an argument of their merits in converting the Slavs.

See also

• Freising manuscripts
• Roman Catholicism in Austria
• Roman Catholicism in Slovenia

References

• Monumenta Germaniae historica, vol.11 (1890)
• Der Große Brockhaus. Handbuch des Wissens in 20 Baenden. vol. 12, Leipzig 1932
• John Lanigan, An ecclesiastical History of Ireland, from the first introduction of Christianity among the Irish, to the beginning of the thirteenth century. Compiled from the works of the most esteemed authors, foreign and domestic, who have written and published on matters connected with the Irish church; and from Irish annals and other authentic documents, still existing in manuscript. Dublin, 2nd ed. 1829
• Friedrich Leitner: Kurzer Abriss der Kaerntner Geschichte vom Fruehmittelalter bis 1920, Klagenfurt 2006
• Michael J. Walsh, A New Dictionary of Saints, London 2007
• The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913
• Josef Wodka, Modestus. In: Lexikon der Theologie und Kirche, 2nd ed., vol.7, Freiburg i.Br. 1962
• Josef Wodka, Kirche in Österreich. Ein Wegweiser durch ihre Geschichte, Vienna 1959

Notes

1. ^ All dates concerning Modestus vary considerably.
   Catholic Truth: "died 722" Catholic-truth.info
   Friedrich Leitner: "dispatched in/before 757 Suffragan Modestus to the Alpine Slavs"OE-journal.at
   Archdiocese of Salzburg: "Before 767 Virgil sent Modestus and Libellus to Carinthia"Caritas-salzburg.at
   Ecumenical Lexikon of Saints:"Modestus...went south in 750..."Heiligenlexikon.de
2. ^ Ceithumar and Khotimir are other forms of his name, but Cheitmar is the most frequent form to be found in English and German sources: "Cheitmar later became duke of the Carantians (~752) and invited priests and bishops from Salzburg into Carantania."Geocities.com and even Slovene sources give his name in this form: Yahoo Groups.
3. ^ John Lanigan, p 206
4. ^ Wodka, Kirche in Österreich, p. 35
5. ^ cf. Walter Freinbichler ed. AUSTRIA LATINA, Vita S Roudberti

Persondata
Name	Modestus,
Alternative names
Short description	missionary, evangelizer of the Alpine Slavs
Date of birth	unknown, ca 720
Place of birth	probably Ireland
Date of death	unknown, before 770 PLACE OF DEATH= Carinthia
Place of death