Feast December 17
Sturmi was the son of Christian parents in Bavaria.
He was placed under the direction of St. Boniface, the great apostle of the Germans, who, in turn, entrusted the youth’s education to St. Wigbert in the abbey of Fritzlar.
In due course ordained a priest, Sturmi was a missionary in Westphalia for three years, after which he took to an eremitical life.
Later, when St. Boniface founded the monastery of Fulda in 744, he appointed Sturmi abbot. The favorite foundation of St. Boniface, Fulda became a point from which Germany could be effectively evangelized and the pattern-seminary of priests for all Germany.
Soon after the foundation, Sturmi traveled to Italy to study Benedictine observance at Monte Cassino. There seems to be evidence that Pope St. Zachary granted the Abbey of Fulda to be subject directly to the Pope, free from episcopal jurisdiction.
After the martyrdom of St. Boniface, St. Lull as his successor, acted differently toward the abbey claiming it should be subject to his jurisdiction as bishop. In the ensuing struggle, Sturmi was banished and another appointed abbot, but the monks did not accept him and expelled him, threatening to appeal to the king.
Eventually, Sturmi returned to the helm of Fulda Abbey, but his efforts to evangelize the Germans was somewhat truncated by Charlemagne’s conquests and his rather truculent enforcement of religion.
When Charlemagne turned to Spain to fight the Moors, the Saxons drove out the monks from Fulda.
In 779 when Charlemagne returned, incurring some victories against the Saxons, St. Sturmi was in a better position but he did not live to continue his missions.
The saintly abbot fell gravely ill, and despite the efforts of Charlemagne’s own physician, he died on December 17, 779.
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