Mercedarians

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Heraldic shield of the Mercedarian Order - it consists of the Aragonese coat of arms (four red stripes on a gold background); above it the white cross of Barcelona Cathedral and the Aragonese royal crown.

Members of the Catholic order of the Mercedarians (Orden de la Merced) are referred to as Mercedarians (Latin Ordo Beatae Mariae de Mercede Redemptionis Captivorum , Italian Ordine della BM Vergine della Mercede , Spanish Orden de Nuestra Señora de la Merced Redención de Cautivos ; Order abbreviation : OdeM ). The order was founded in the Kingdom of Aragon (Iberian Peninsula) in the early 13th century for the purpose of ransoming Christians in Moorish captivity. Special features are the veneration of Maria de la Merced (Mary of Mercy, Mary of the Ransom of Prisoners ) as well as the so-called fourth oath , with which the members of the order officially undertake since the middle of the 16th century to put themselves hostage if necessary and their lives to leave if this were necessary for the release of prisoners. The Mercedarian Order, which was initially widespread in Spanish-speaking countries, now looks after schools and charitable projects that are directed against “new forms of social, political and psychological slavery”. The order is currently led by the General Magister Juan Carlos Saavedra Lucho (six-year generalate since 2016). The seat of the order is in Via Monte Carmelo in Rome.

Today's order

Mercedarian with white habit, scapular and choir cloak, Francisco de Zurbarán (around 1633)

The Mercedarian Order is divided into two broad areas:

Religious

Male religious community

In 2009 the male branch had 157 houses and 724 members. The branches are located in 22 countries and are organized in nine provinces (Aragon, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Castile, Mexico, Peru, Quito-Ecuador, Rome) and four vicariates (Caribbean, Venezuela, United States, Central America). In Africa there are presences in Cameroon, Angola and Mozambique, in Asia missions in India. A statistic from 1992 breaks down the status of the members of the Order and their commitment more precisely: in 1992 there were 152 houses in 16 countries. 10 members of the order held episcopal offices. There were 494 priests , 140 monks (profesos clérgios), 66 lay brothers and 40 novices . They looked after 130 parishes, 44 schools, 56 chaplain positions in prisons, 3 missions and 41 social welfare projects.

Female religious orders

Lay sisters were associated with the order very early, their accession was regulated in the constitutions of 1272. After the Council of Trent their houses became convents of nuns. In 1617 a branch of the Discalced Mercedarian Sisters was founded, who lived in strict enclosure. In 1724 there were about 560 nuns in both branches together.

In 1997 173 Mercedarians lived in 11 monasteries. Your current constitutions date from 1986.

Some of the monasteries are organized in associations that emphasize either the contemplative or the active life.

There are also several congregations or institutes of consecrated life :

  • Instituto de Nuestra Señora de la Merced de Barcelona
  • Hermanas Mercedarias de la Caridad , founded in Málaga in 1878 by Juan Nepomuceno Zegrí y Moreno
  • Suore della Mercede
  • Instituto Hermanas Terceras Mercedarias del Niño Jesús
  • Hermanas Mercedarias del Santísimo Sacramento (Motherhouse in Mexico City)
  • Irmãs Mercedárias Missionárias do Brasil , founded in 1938 by Lúcia Etchepare
  • Hermanas Mercedarias Misioneras de Bérriz
  • Mercedarias del Niño Jesús (Motherhouse in Córdoba, Argentina)

Lay people

  1. Third order - The lay people organized in the “ third order ” each have their own statutes with special tasks (such as participation in processions, church decorations , charitable works) and rights (such as religious services in their name, graves in the churches).
  2. Mercedarian Knights - By reconnecting to the order and the recognition of the knightly branch by decision of the 87th General Magister in 2002, these are an official part of the order. This area is called Real Compagnia di Santa Maria della Mercede in Italian and currently consists of around 500 knights and ladies around the world who are run as familiars of the order. The knight branch initiates Governor (ital. Governatore ), currently SE Michael Sprenger Menzel. In various regions this is represented by a governor (Italian: Luogotenente).
  3. Confraternite
  4. Aggregations

Creation and calling of the Order

Mary of Mercy (de Mercede)

The Mercedarian tradition traces the origin of the order back to an apparition of the Virgin Mary of Petrus Nolascus (Catalan. Pere Nolasc , Spanish. Pedro Nolasco ), who commissioned him to found an order for the ransom of Christians in Moorish captivity. Descriptions from the 16th and 17th centuries, according to which the Virgin Mary to the layman Nolascus, the young king of Aragon Jacob I and his Dominican confessor Raimund von Penyafort (Spanish: Raimundo Peñaforte ) on August 1, 1218, are influential to this day appeared in Barcelona. Nolasco was then awarded the Mercedarian habit and coat of arms in the Cathedral of Barcelona by Bishop Berenguer de Palou .

The historical sources, on the other hand, indicate that it was created by laypeople committed to charity in the urban context of Barcelona , which was in contact with the Muslim Levant both through military conflicts and through commercial expansion. For 1232 the donation of a piece of land by the aristocratic outfitter of the navy and Levante merchant Raimundus de Plicamanibus (Catalan: Ramon de Plegamans) to Nolasco is documented; Nolasco is named in another Plicamanibus foundation from 1234 as the head of the hospital built there by Plicamanibus in honor of Saint Eulalia of Barcelona .

The lay brotherhood was founded in 1235 by the bull Devotionis vestrae from Pope Gregory IX. (1227–1241) recognized as a Catholic order. Like the Dominicans , religious orders of knights and others, the Mercedarians received the Augustine Rule , which made a comparatively active life possible. Organization and official titles were based on those of the military orders. However, the Mercedarians were not a royal knightly order, as was accepted or propagated by the Aragonese royal house in the 14th century and by Mercedarian order chronicles in the 17th and 18th centuries.

At the time of the formation of the order, there were already various ecclesiastical, stately, urban and private initiatives and structures that tried to absorb the negative consequences of the slave economy practiced by all Mediterranean countries for Christians and organized the ransom and the exchange of prisoners. The Trinitarian Order was founded in Castile in 1198. It ran hospitals and collected free money.

The Mercedarians collected and administered donations and organized free rides at irregular intervals. Those who were bought out were obliged to take part in further fundraising for a certain period of time. Recent studies assume that between 1235 and 1480 about 180 to 2569 prisoners were ransomed.

Various chronists and historians of the order assume that it was the explicit mandate of Maria de la Merced , or rather traditional practice in the order, to place themselves hostage instead of imprisoned Christians in an emergency. With the constitution of 1588 a fourth oath was prescribed for the Mercedarians in addition to the usual vows of poverty, chastity and obedience : “[...] and in the power of the Saracens I remain hostage if it is necessary to free the believing Christians ".

History of the Order

The lay order was transformed into a pure order of priests at the beginning of the 14th century. In 1318 the order was given by Pope John XXII. prescribed a priest as the superior general . Whether, and if so how many, laypeople joined the Spanish Order of Knights of Montesa, which was founded in 1319, is controversial. Now consisting largely of priests and lay brothers, the Mercedarians devoted themselves to pastoral care , fundraising and ransom. In the 16th century, the order expanded into Central and South America in the wake of Spanish conquerors. The income and contacts there also gave the order a Siglo de Oro in motherland Spain , which was reflected in the increasing academic education and the holding of high church offices. From 1569 to 1589, the Mercedarians owned the Church of Sante Rufina e Seconda in Rome . Belonged to the mendicant orders since 1690 , the Mercedarians also have a female branch. In the 19th century the order got into a threatening crisis for several decades when it lost its monasteries in France to the French Revolution; In 1835 the branches in Spain and Italy were also closed. Since the re-admission, the members of the order have devoted themselves to missionary and social tasks.

Today's association of Mercedarian Knights is based on military origins and a continued military tradition in or parallel to the order. In Spain and Italy, therefore, some groups of Mercedarian knights continued to exist independently and founded brotherhoods or knightly associations based on the Catholic faith. By decree of the Magister General of the Mercedarian Order in 2002 there was an official reunification of the temporarily independent knights with the official clerical branch.

Saints of the Mercedarian Order

Fray Pedro Machado, Francisco de Zurbarán (around 1633)

Priests and Brothers of the Mercedarian Order

  • Fray Gabriel Telléz “ Tirso de Molina ” (1587–1648), famous Spanish playwright

The Mercedarian Order in Austria

In Vienna there used to be a hospital of the order at Boltzmanngasse 9. This was built in 1722/23 according to a design by Anton Ospel for the Spanish hospital administered by Mercedarians . The church consecrated to Maria de Mercede has been used since 1785 for the orphanage founded by Emperor Joseph II .

Since 1914 the church has served as a seminary church for the Vienna seminary .

Since 2005 there has been a commander of the Mercedarian Knights (Cavalieri della Mercede) in Vienna .

See also

literature

Order chronicles

  • Murúa, Martín de, Historia General del Pirú, orígen y descendencia de los Incas ... Ms. 1616.
  • Remón, Alonso, Historia General de la Orden de Nuestra Señora de la Merced Redención de Cautivos ... (2 vol.), Madrid 1618, 1633.
  • Vargas, Bernardo de, Chronica Sacri et Militaris Ordinis Beatae Mariae de Mercede Redemptionis Captivorum (2 vol.), Palermo 1619, 1622.
  • Molina, Tirso de (Pseud. Fr. Gabriel Téllez), Historia general de la orden de Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes (2 vol.), (Ms.1636, 1639), Madrid 1973, 1974.
  • Salmerón, Marcos, Recuerdos históricos y políticos ... , Valencia 1646.

Historical studies of the order

  • Vázquez Núñez, Fr. Guillermo, Manual de historia de la Orden de Nuestra Señora de la Merced. Tomo I , Toledo 1931.
  • Pérez Rodriguez, Fr. Pedro Nolasco, Historia de las misiones mercedarias en América , Madrid 1966.
  • Brodman, James William, Ransoming Captives in Crusader Spain: The Order of Merced on the Christian-Islamic Frontier , Pennsylvania 1986. (Pdfs under URL: http://libro.uca.edu/rc/captives.htm )
  • García Oro, José / Portela Silva, Maria José, Felipe II y la Reforma de las Ordenes Redentoras , in: Estudios 200-201 (1998), 5-155.
  • Taylor, Bruce, Structures of Reform. The Mercedarian Order in the Spanish Golden Age , Leiden 2000, ISBN 9004118578 ; 978-9004118577
  • León Cázares, María del Carmen, Reforma o extinción: Un siglo de adaptaciones de la Orden de Nuestra Señora de la Merced en Nueva España , México 2004, ISBN 9789703221820
  • Mora González, Enrique, Fe, Libertad, Frontera. Los rescates de la Merced en la España de Felipe II (Redenciones 1575, 1579 y 1583) (Diss. Pontifica Universitá Gregoriana Rome 2012).
  • Keller, Maret, expansion and activities of the Mercedarian Order in the Andean region of the 16th century , Heidelberg 2015, URL: http://www.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/archiv/18729
  • Jaspert, Nikolas, the purchase of prisoners in the Crown of Aragón and the beginnings of the Mercedarian Order. Institutional diversity, religious contexts, Mediterranean interdependencies. in: Grieser / Priesching (ed.) Purchase of prisoners in the Mediterranean area. An interreligious comparison. Hildesheim u. a. 2015, ISBN 9783487152196 , pp. 99-121.

Web links

Commons : Mercedarians  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Brodman 1986, pp. 16-25; Keller 2015, pp. 35–37; Jaspert 2015, p. 102.
  2. ↑ Keller 2015, pp. 41–42.
  3. ↑ See e.g. B. in Lima http://www.iepmercedarias.edu.pe/ and Arequipa http://www.mercedariasaqp.edu.pe/ (in Spanish)
  4. ↑ “Regla y constituciones de la orden de la bv María de la Merced”, Rome 2014, p. 44, downloadable from http://www.ordenmerced.org/index.php/es/gobierno/constituciones (in Spanish).
  5. ↑ http://www.aica.org/23177-fray-juan-carlos-saavedra-lucho-es-el-nuevo-maestro-general.html .
  6. ^ Actas y Documentos del Capítulo General de la Orden de la Merced. Roma, 1 - 22 de mayo de 2010 . In: Boletín de la Orden de la Merced , número extraordinario, año 82 (2010), Rome, p. 331.
  7. ↑ Boletín de la Orden de la Merced , año 81/1 (2009), Rome, p. 181.
  8. ↑ Order de la Merced. General Curia (Ed.): Mercedarios Hoy. Rome, no year (between 2004 and 2010, under Generalate Giovannino Tolu).
  9. ↑ Instituto Historico de la Orden de la Merced (ed.): La Orden de Santa Maria de la Merced (1218-1992). Síntesis histórica . (= Biblioteca Mercedaria VI), Rome 1997, p. 346.
  10. ↑ Mercedarias , page of the Mercedarian Province of Chile on the history and branches of the Mercedarians, accessed on July 15, 2019 (Spanish).
  11. ↑ Instituto Historico de la Orden de la Merced (ed.): La Orden de Santa Maria de la Merced (1218-1992). Síntesis histórica . (= Biblioteca Mercedaria VI), Rome 1997, pp. 34, 184, 347.
  12. ↑ La Familia Mercedaria en el Mundo , accessed on July 15, 2019 (Spanish).
  13. ↑ Torres, Gaspar, Regula et Constitutiones… 1565, fol. 1r. – 3v. (Latin section), fol. 5v. – 9v. (Spanish section); see. Keller 2015, p. 31.
  14. ↑ Jaspert 2015, p. 110.
  15. ↑ Brodman 1986, p. 117.
  16. ↑ Burns, The Crusader Kingdom of Valencia , pp. 247-252; Brodman 1986, pp. 19-22; Keller 2015, pp. 42–44; Jaspert 2015, pp. 100-102.
  17. ↑ Jaspert 2015, pp. 103-108; Keller 2015, pp. 33–34.
  18. ^ Díaz Borrás, El miedo al Mediterráneo. La caridad popular valenciana y la talkción de cautivos bajo poder musulmán, 1323-1539. Barcelona 2001, pp. 55-56. See also Jaspert 2015, p. 100.
  19. ↑ Keller 2015, pp. 41, 47.
  20. ↑ Oviedo Cavada, Materia del voto de talkcion , in: Estudios 32 (1955), p. 167: "[...] et in saracenorum potestate in pignus (si necesse fuerit ad redemptionem Christi fidelium) detentus Manebo".
  21. ↑ Coming of the Mercedarian Knights