Calvary, Mount, Orders of

CALVARY, MOUNT, ORDERS OF: Three religious orders taking their name from the Mount of Crucifixion.

1. The Calvarists or Priests of Mt. Calvary: An association of secular priests founded by Hubert Charpentier at Mt. Bétharam, diocese of Lescar (4 m. n.w. by w. of Pau), France, in 1633 "in commemoration of the sufferings of Christ and for the spread of the Catholic faith," five years later united with a similar association formed in Paris by a Capuchin named Hyacinthe, primarily to convert Protestants. The chief seat of the united orders was Mont Valérien, Paris (hence popularly called Colline du Calvaire). They perished in the French Revolution.

2. The Nuns of Mt. Calvary (Bénédictines de Notre-Dame du Calvaire): Founded by Antoinette d’Orléans (d. 1618) and the Capuchin Joseph de Clerc de Tremblay in 1617 at Poitiers, properly a branch of the Order of Fontévraud. In the seventeenth century they had about twenty houses which were destroyed in the French Revolution. Since then the order has been revived and has a number of convents mostly in western France.

3. The Daughters of Mt. Calvary (Figlie del Calvario): Founded at Genoa in 1619 by Virginia Centurione (d. 1651), daughter of the doge of Genoa and wife of Grimaldi Bracelli, who undertook the care of abandoned children in a time of great distress from famine. She received help from the Marchese Emanuele Brignole, from whom the members of the order were called Le suore Brignole in Genoa. They spread in North Italy, were given a house in Rome by Gregory XVI. in 1833, and later established orphan asylums at Rieti and Viterbo.

(O. Zöckler†.)

Bibliography: Helyot, Ordres monastiques, vi. 355–370; Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregationen, i. 197, ii. 362, 427. Consult also A. M. Centurione, Vita di Virginia Centurione-Bracelli, Genoa, 1873.