Saint Unni was an archbishop of
Hamburg-Bremen (916 – 17 September 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,
epithetisedApostle of the North and second Apostle of the North,[1] Unni is revered as third Apostle of the North and as Saint.[2]
^Besides Rimbert also the missionary
Sigfrid of Sweden and the
ReformatorJohannes 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.