Sylvestrines

The Sylvestrines are a congregation of monks of the Order of St. Benedict who form the Sylvestrine Congregation. The Sylvestrines use the post-nominal initials O.S.B. Silv. The congregation was founded in 1231 by Saint Sylvester Gozzolini. They are members of the Benedictine Confederation. Unlike most other congregations of the Order, they do not have any monasteries of nuns. The congregation is similar to others of eremetical origin, in that their houses are not raised to the status of an abbey, which would entangle the monasteries more strongly in the affairs of the world. The congregation, though, is led by an abbot general, the only abbot it has, who supervises all the houses of the congregation.

The founder, Saint Sylvester (1177-1267), was born at Osimo near Ancona, Italy. As a young man he entered a community of Augustinian canons regular, who served the cathedral, and eventually was professed in that Order and received Holy Orders. About 1227 he left the community to lead an austere, eremitical life. Disciples flocked to him, however, and in 1231 he built a hermitage by the mountain of Montefano in the March of Ancona (now the town of Fabriano), from which the community took its original name.

The community that Sylvester founded followed the Rule of St. Benedict, but, as regards poverty in external matters, was far stricter than the general Benedictines of the time. The congregation was approved in 1247 by Pope Innocent IV, and, at Sylvester's death in 1267, there were eleven Sylvestrine monasteries. At their peak, there were 56 monasteries in the congregation, mostly in Umbria and Tuscany, as well as in the March of Ancona.

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