Education
He was educated at the Benedictine Niederaltaich Abbey, and was made bishop in 971.
He was educated at the Benedictine Niederaltaich Abbey, and was made bishop in 971.
Piligrim was ambitious, but also concerned with the Christianization of Hungary. To him are attributed some, if not all, of the Forgeries of Lorch. These are a series of documents, especially papal bulls of Pope Symmachus, Pope Eugene II, Pope Leo VII, and Pope Agapetus II, fabricated to prove that Passau was a continuation of a former archdiocese of Lorch.
By these he attempted to obtain from Benedict VI the elevation of Passau to an archdiocese, the re-erection of those dioceses in Pannonia and Mœsia which had been suffragans of Lorch, and the pallium for himself.
There is extant an alleged Bulletin of Benedict VI granting Piligrim"s demands. But this is also the work of Piligrim, possibly a document drawn up for the papal signature, which it never received.
He built many schools and churches, restored the Rule of Saint Benedict in Niederaltaich, transferred the relics of Saint Maximilian from Oetting to Passau, and held synods (983-91) at Ennsburg (Lorch), Mautern, and Mistelbach. In the Nibelungenlied he is lauded as a contemporary of the heroes of that epic.
