Lazarists

A religious order, founded in France at the priory of St Lazare, Paris, in 1625 by St Vincent de Paul; properly known as the Congregation of the Mission (CM); also called the Vincentians. Originally missionaries to rural districts and educators of the clergy, they now have foundations worldwide.

Lazarites (Lazarists or Lazarians, or, in English-speaking countries, Vincentians) are the popular names of the Congregation of the Mission in the Roman Catholic Church. They are a vowed Congregation of priests and brothers associated with the Vincentian Family, a loose federation of organizations who claim St. Vincent de Paul as their founder or Patron.

The Congregation has its origin in the successful mission to the common people conducted by Saint Vincent de Paul and five other priests on the estates of the Gondi family. More immediately it dates from 1624, when the little community acquired a permanent settlement in the Collège des Bons Enfants in Paris. By a papal bull in January 1632, the society was constituted a congregation, with St Vincent de Paul at its head. About the same time the canons regular of St Victor handed over to the congregation the priory of St Lazarus (formerly a lazar-house) in Paris, whence the name of Lazarites or Lazarists.

Within a few years they had acquired another house in Paris and set up other establishments throughout France; missions were also sent to Italy (1638), Tunis (1643), Algiers and Ireland (1646), Madagascar (1648) and Poland (1651).

On the eve of the French Revolution St Lazare was plundered by the mob, the congregation later suppressed;

The Lazarite province of Poland was singularly prosperous; In addition, they established branches in Persia, Abyssinia, Mexico, the South American republics, Portugal, Spain and Russia, some of which have been suppressed. In the same year they had fourteen establishments in the United States of America.

In the early twenty-first century the Lazarites numbered some 4000 worldwide, with a presence in 86 different countries.

Members of the congregation include:

P. Bertholon (1689-1757), physician Évariste Régis Huc (1813-1860), missionary and traveller Armand David (1826-1900), Chinese missionary and traveller. Joseph Rosati (1789-1843), first bishop of St. Louis, Missouri Thaddeus Amat y Brusi (1810-1878), first bishop of Los Angeles