After the death of Archbishop Henry of Trier in 964, Wolfgang entered the Benedictine order in the Abbey of Maria Einsiedeln, Switzerland,[1] and was ordained priest by Saint Ulrich in 968.

After their defeat in the Battle of the Lechfeld (955), Hungarians settled in ancient Pannonia, where they remained a constant menace to the empire.

At the request of Ulrich, who clearly saw the danger, and at the desire of the Emperor Otto the Great, Wolfgang, according to the abbey annals, was "sent to the Hungarians" as the most suitable man to evangelize them.

As Bishop of Regensburg, Wolfgang became the tutor of Emperor Saint Henry II, who learned from him the principles which governed his life.

He also cooperated in the reform of the ancient and celebrated Benedictine Abbey of Niederaltaich, which had been founded by the Agilolfinger dynasty, and which from that time took on new life.

[4] His body was taken up the Danube by his friends Count Aribo of Andechs and Archbishop Hartwich of Salzburg to Regensburg, and was solemnly buried in the crypt of Saint Emmeram.

[4] In Christian art he has been especially honoured by the medieval Tyrolean painter Michael Pacher (1430–1498), who created an imperishable memorial to him, the high altar of St. Wolfgang.

In the panel pictures which are now exhibited in the Old Pinakothek at Munich are depicted in an artistic manner the chief events in the saint's life.

The oldest portrait of Wolfgang is a miniature, painted about the year 1100 in the Evangeliary of Saint Emmeram, now in the library of the castle cathedral at Kraków.

In other paintings he is generally depicted in episcopal dress, an axe in the right hand and the crozier in the left, or as a hermit in the wilderness being discovered by a hunter.

This life is especially important for the early medieval history both of the church and of civilization in Bavaria and Austria, and it forms the basis of all later accounts of the saint.