Chaldean Antonian Monks of Saint Ormizd

CHALDEAN ANTONIAN MONKS OF SAINT ORMIZD. - In Mesopotamia and Persia monasticism, once very flourishing, had completely disappeared by the end of the 18th century. Gabriel Danbù (1784-1832), a native of Mardin, devoted himself to commerce in his youth; having fallen gravely ill, he made a vow to become a religious should he recover. In 1808, with two religious, he entered the monastery of Rabban Hormizd, near Alqòs, and thus gave rise to his Order. Bishop Hemanis, of the Abùna family, heiress to the Nestorian patriarchal dignity, had granted this monastery to Fr. Danbù, but then repented of it, and the Abùna began to persecute the monks in such a way that the founder opened negotiations with the Maronite patriarch to transfer them to Lebanon. The Order, however, was so necessary to the Chaldean Catholics that, in its first 17 years of life, it provided them with five bishops. In 1830 the S. Congregation of Propaganda approved its constitutions, and in 1845 Gregory XVI, with the brief Monachorum instituta, approved them anew. As the brief says, they are those of the a. Maronites of St. Isaiah, with few modifications. According to the Statistica, published by the S. Congregation for the Eastern Church in 1932, the monasteries number 3 and the monks 55.

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