Community of St-Lazare
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| Abbreviation | C.M. |
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| Motto |
Evangelizare pauperibus misit me He sent me to preach the good news to the poor. |
| Established | 1625 |
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Founder
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Saint Vincent de Paul |
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Superior
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Tomaž Mavrič, CM (from 2016) |
| Website | Vencentians |
| Remarks | C.M. is part of the larger Vincentian Family |
Congregation of the Mission (Congregatio Missionis – C.M.) is a vowed, Roman Catholic society of apostolic life of priests and brothers founded by St. Vincent de Paul. It is associated with the Vincentian Family, a loose federation of organizations who claim Vincent de Paul as their founder or Patron. They are popularly known as Vincentians, Paules, Lazarites, Lazarists, or Lazarians.
The Congregation has its origin in the successful mission to the common people conducted by 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. Archiepiscopal recognition was obtained in 1626. By a papal bull on January 12, 1633, the society was constituted a congregation, with Vincent de Paul as 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), Poland (1651), and Turkey (1783). A fresh bull of Alexander VII in April 1655 further confirmed the society; this was followed by a brief in September of the same year, regulating its constitution. The rules then adopted, which were framed on the model of those of the Jesuits, were published at Paris in 1668 under the title Regulae seu constitutiones communes congregationis missionis. The special objects contemplated were the religious instruction of the poor, the training of the clergy, and foreign missions.
On the eve of the French Revolution, St. Lazare was plundered by the mob and the congregation later suppressed; it was restored by Napoleon in 1804 at the desire of Pius VII, abolished by him in 1809 in consequence of a quarrel with the pope, and again restored in 1816. The Lazarists were expelled from Italy in 1871 and from Germany in 1873.
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Wikipedia