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Gunther of Bohemia


Gunther (c. 955 - 1045) was a Bohemian Catholic hermit and saint in the eleventh century.

Gunther was born in around 955 to a noble family, related to the Royal Otto Family as well as with the Hungarian Arpades. He was a Duke of Thuringia, and is numbered among the ancestors of the princely house of Schwarzburg. He spent the early part of his life at court in the midst of worldly pleasures and ambitious intrigues.

He was converted in 1005 at the age of fifty by St. Gotthard, Abbot of Hersfeld, later Bishop of Hildesheim, and resolved to embrace the monastic life in order to do penance for his past faults. With the consent of his heirs, he bequeathed all his goods to the Abbey of Hersfeld, reserving the right to richly endow and maintain the monastery of Göllingen, the ownership of which he persisted in retaining despite all the efforts of St. Gotthard to prevent him. In 1006, the novice made a pilgrimage to Rome, and in the following year made his vows as lay brother in the monastery of Niederaltaich before the holy Abbot Gotthard. Gunther helped to bring civilization to the region by clearing the forests and planting fields.

Soon afterwards, Gunther urgently entreated to be allowed to govern his monastery of Göllingen, and St. Gotthard's remonstrances could not turn him aside from his purpose. Shortly after his elevation to the abbacy, the former lay brother fell ill, and as he could not agree with his monks, the affairs of the monastery were soon in a perilous condition. By his charitable counsels mingled with severe reprimands, St. Gotthard succeeded in dispelling the ambitious views of Gunther, who returned once more to his humble condition at Niederaltaich, and led an edifying life.

In 1008, he withdrew to a wild, steep place near Lalling, to live as a hermit. In 1011, he penetrated farther north in the forest with several companions and settled at Rinchnach, where he built cells and a church of St. John Baptist. Here he lived for thirty-four years a life of the greatest poverty and mortification. The very water was measured out to the brothers, guests alone being free to use at as they would.


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