He was a native of Swabia, in Germany, and being a clergyman eminent
for piety and learning, was chosen by the emperor Henry IV. to attend
his sister Judith in quality of chaplain when she was married to
Boleslas III. duke of Poland, that state remaining deprived of the
royal dignity[14] from the year 1079 till it was restored in 1295,
in favor of Premislas II. After the death of that princess, Otho
returned, and was made by Henry IV. his chancellor. That prince
caused the seals and crosses of every deceased bishop and great
abbot to be delivered to him, and he sold them to whom he pleased.
This notorious simony and oppression of the Church was zealously
condemned by the pope, in opposition to whom the emperor set up the
antipope Guibert. Otho labored to bring his prince to sentiments
of repentance and submission, and refused to approve his schism or
other crimes. Notwithstanding which, so great was the esteem which
the emperor had for his virtue, that, resolving to make choice at
least of one good bishop, he nominated him bishop of Bamberg in 1103.
The saint, notwithstanding the schism, went to Rome and received
his confirmation together with the pall from pope Paschal II. He
labored to extinguish the schism, and to obviate the mischiefs which
it produced; and for this purpose he displayed his eloquence and
abilities in the diet at Ratisbon in 1104. Henry V. succeeding his
father in 1106, continued to foment the schism; yet inherited the
esteem of his predecessor for our saint, though he always adhered
to the holy see, and was in the highest credit with all the popes
of his time; so strongly does virtue command respect even in its
adversaries, and such is the power of meekness in disarming the
fiercest tyrants. St. Otho joined always with the functions of
his charge the exercises of an interior life, in which he was an
admirable proficient. He made many pious foundations, calling them
inns which we erect on our road to eternity.
Boleslas IV. duke of Poland, son of that Boleslas who had married the
sister of Henry IV. having succeeded his elder brother Ladislas II.
and conquered part of Pomerania, entreated St. Otho to undertake a
mission among the idolaters of that country. The good bishop having
settled his own diocess in good order, and obtained of pope Honorius
II. a commission for that purpose, took with him a considerable
number of zealous priests and catechists, and passed through Poland
into Prussia, and thence into eastern Pomerania. He was met by
Uratislas II. duke of Upper Pomerania, who received the sacrament
of baptism with the greatest part of his people in 1124. St. Otho
returned to Bamberg for Easter the following year, having appointed
priests every where to attend the new converts, and finish the work
he had so happily begun. The towns of Stetin and Julin having again
relapsed into idolatry, St. Otho, with a second blessing of pope
Honorius II. returned into Pomerania in 1128, brought those cities
back to the faith, and through innumerable hardships and dangers
carried the light of the gospel into Noim, and other remote barbarous
provinces. He returned again to the care of his own flock, amidst
which he died the death of the saints on the 30th of June, 1139. He
was buried on the 2d of July, on which day he is commemorated in the
Roman Martyrology. He was canonized by Clement III. in 1189. The
rich shrine which contains his sacred remains is preserved in the
electoral treasury at Hanover. See Thesaurus Reliquiarum Electoris
Brunswico-Luneburgensis, folio, printed at Hanover in 1713. See also
the accurate life of this saint in the latter editions of Surius, and
in Acta Sanctorum, by the Bollandists, t. 1, Julii.