Servite Order

Foundation (d. 1266), one of the seven founders of the Servite Order. The order was founded in 1233 by "the seven holy founders", each a member of a patrician family of Florence, Italy. These cloth merchants left their city, families, and professions and withdrew to Monte Senario, a mountain outside the city of Florence, for a life of poverty and penance. The seven were: Bonfilius of Florence, born Bonfilius Monaldi (Buonfiglio dei Monaldi); Alexis of Florence, born Alexis Falconieri () (1200 – 17 February 1310); Manettus of Florence, born Benedict dell'Antella (Benedetto dell' Antella); Amideus of Florence, born Bartholemew Amidei (died 1266) (also known as Bartolomeo degli Amidei); Hugh of Florence, born Ricovero Uguccioni (Hugh dei Lippi Uggucioni (Ricovero dei Lippi-Ugguccioni)); Sostene of Florence, born Gerardino Sostegni (Gherardino di Sostegno); and Buonagiunta of Florence, born John Manetti (Giovanni di Buonagiunta (Bonajuncta)). (d. 1310), one of the seven founders of the Servite Order. The members of the order dedicated themselves to Mary under her title of Mother of Sorrows (). The distinctive spirit of the order is the sanctification of its members by meditation on the Passion of Jesus and the Sorrows of the Virgin Mary, and spreading abroad this devotion. The Bishop of Florence, Ardengo Trotti (Ardengo Dei Foraboschi), approved the group as a religious order sometime between 1240 and 1247. The Servites, like other new orders before them such as the Trinitarians and the Dominicans, decided to live by the ancient Rule of St. Augustine, and added to the rule further guidelines that were the expression of their own Marian devotion and dedication. By 1250 a number of Servites had been ordained to the priesthood, thus creating an order with priests as well as brothers. Pope Alexander IV favored a plan for the amalgamation of all orders which followed the Rule of St. Augustine. This was accomplished in March 1256, but about the same time a rescript was issued confirming the Servite Order as a separate body with power to elect a general. Four years later a general chapter was convened at which the order was divided into two provinces, Tuscany and Umbria, the former being governed by Manettus and the latter by Sostene. Within five years two new provinces were added, that of Romagna and that of Lombardy. Centuries of growth (1233–1285) Philip Benizi was elected general on 5 June 1267, and afterwards became the great propagator of the order. , Austria The new foundation enjoyed considerable growth in the following decades. Already in the thirteenth century there were houses of the order in Germany, France, and Spain. By the early years of the fourteenth century the order had more than one hundred houses in locations including Hungary, Bohemia, Austria, Poland, and what later became Belgium. In subsequent periods came missions in Crete, the Philippines (St. Peregrine-Philippine Vicariate), and India. Beginning in the early part of the eighteenth century the order sustained a series of losses and confiscations from which it has yet to recover. A first blow fell upon the flourishing Province of Narbonne, which was almost totally destroyed by the plague which swept Marseille in 1720. Thanks to secularizing inroads made by the Enlightenment, in 1783 the Servites were expelled from Prague and in 1785 the Emperor Joseph II desecrated the shrine of Maria Waldrast. The French Revolution and ensuing hostilities throughout western Europe caused widespread losses. Ten houses were suppressed in Spain in 1835. After the seizure of Rome under the Italian Risorgimento in 1870, the government of Italy closed the Servite house of studies in the city, along with many other papal institutions. The institute was re-founded as the College of Sant Alessio Falcioneri in 1895. New expansion After a gap of 25 years, in 1895 the house of studies in Rome was re-founded as the College of Sant Alessio Falcioneri. This development went hand in hand at this period with other initiatives and a new foundation was made at Brussels in 1891 and the order was introduced into England and United States, chiefly through the efforts of the Servite priests Bosio and Morini. The latter, having gone to London in 1864 as director of the affiliated Congregation of the Sisters of Compassion, obtained charge of a parish from Archbishop Manning in 1867. The work prospered and besides St. Mary's Priory in London, convents were opened at Bognor Regis (1882) and Begbroke (1886). In 1870 Morini, Ventura, Giribaldi, and Joseph Camera, at the request of Bishop Joseph Melcher of Green Bay, Wisconsin, took up a mission in America, at Neenah. Morini founded at Chicago (1874) the monastery of Our Lady of Sorrows. A novitiate was opened at Granville, Wisconsin in 1892 and an American province was formally established in 1908. Twentieth century The order continued to expand geographically throughout the twentieth century, taking responsibility for missions in Swaziland in 1913, Acre in Brazil in 1919, Aisén in Chile in 1937, and Zululand in South Africa. It also made foundations in Argentina from 1914 and more solidly since 1921; Transvaal in South Africa from 1935, Uruguay in 1939, Bolivia in 1946, Mexico in 1948, Australia in 1951, Venezuela in 1952, Colombia in 1953, India in 1974, Mozambique in 1984, Philippines in 1985, Uganda, Albania in 1993, and also the refoundations in Hungary (Eger) and the Czech Republic. In the United States there is currently one province of friars with headquarters in Chicago. There are four provinces of sisters with motherhouses in Wisconsin, Nebraska, and two in Illinois. ==Devotions, manner of life==