Chaldean Antonian Monks Of Saint Ormizd

ANTONIANI CALDEI di SANT' ORMISDA. - In Mesopotamia and Persia, monasticism, once very flourishing, had entirely disappeared by the end of the eighteenth century. Gabriele Danbù (1784–1832), a native of Mardin, devoted himself to trade in his youth; having fallen seriously ill, he vowed to become a religious should he recover. In 1808, together with two religious, he entered the monastery of Rabban Hormizd, near Alqòs, and thus founded his Order. Bishop Hemanis, of the Abùna family, hereditary holders of the Nestorian patriarchal dignity, had granted this monastery to Fr. Danbù, but later regretted it, and the Abùna began to persecute the monks so severely that the founder opened negotiations with the Maronite patriarch in order to transfer them to Lebanon. The Order, however, was so necessary to the Chaldean Catholics that, during its first seventeen years of existence, it provided them with five bishops. In 1830 the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda approved its constitutions, and in 1845 Gregory XVI, by the brief Monachorum instituta, approved them anew. As the brief states, they are those of the Maronite Antonines of St. Isaiah, with a few modifications. According to the Statistica published by the Sacred Oriental Congregation in 1932, there are 3 monasteries and 55 monks.

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