CELESTINES, Order of the. - Founded by St. Peter Celestine (Pope Celestine V) around 1240, in the solitude of Mount Maiella. Urban IV, on June 1, 1263, gave the Rule of St. Benedict to the new institute, which came to form the Congregation of the C. (called at first the friars of Pietro Morrone) of the Benedictine Order, confirmed by Gregory X on March 22, 1274.
They observed the Rule of St. Benedict in its rigor with particular statutes, of which a first draft survives, together with the privileges, in the bull Etsi cunctos of Celestine V (L'Aquila, Sept. 27, 1294). The monks were also granted the faculty of hearing confessions and preaching, which brought them closer to the mendicant orders. At the head of the Order stood the abbot of S. Spirito near Sulmona, elected for a three-year term by the General Chapter. The outgoing abbots were called coabbates. All the other monasteries were governed by priors until 1616, when Paul V distinguished the monasteries into abbeys (with at least 12 monks and servants) and priories (with 6 monks and servants). The habit was a white tunic and black hood and, for choir, the black cowl. The coat of arms of the Order was a cross on whose lower shaft was an S, sometimes, especially in France, flanked by two fleurs-de-lis. At the time of its greatest flourishing the Order counted ca. 150 monasteries, of which the majority (nearly a hundred) in Italy. In France, where the Order was introduced by Philip IV the Fair (1300), it reached a certain prosperity with 21 monasteries, but the authority of the abbot general there was supplanted by the provincial introduced toward the end of the Western Schism. Many controversies arose between the two branches, especially because the French had succeeded in occupying the monasteries of S. Benedetto at Norcia and of S. Maria di Collemaggio at L'Aquila.
In 1368 the Order was introduced by Charles IV into Bohemia at Oybin, whence it spread to Königstein. In England there was one house, as in Spain (Barcelona) and in Belgium (Heverlés near Louvain). There was no lack of men illustrious for learning and also for holiness.
The suppression began in France through the work of the Commission of the Regulars. There existed then (1768) 19 houses with 165 religious. Clement XIV sought in vain to save them with a reform (March 1, 1773). Pius VI, between 1776 and 1789, suppressed them in France. No monastery survived the French Revolution. In the kingdom of Naples the C. were for the most part deprived of their revenues in 1798 and suppressed by the government in 1807; in the rest of Italy they were suppressed in 1810 by Napoleon and never recovered. They still had, however, three bishops: F. M. Cipriani of Veroli (1814-43); F. S. Durini of the Marsi (1818-23), then of Aversa (1823-44); L. Zannini of Veroli (1834-1857), d. ca. 1861.
An attempt to revive the C. in France, through the work of d. Giovanni Aurélien, authorized by the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars with a rescript of March 9, 1872, failed. From the C. one must clearly distinguish the «Poor Hermits of Pope Celestine», Franciscan spirituals authorized by Celestine V in 1294 and suppressed by Boniface VIII in 1302.
Bibliography7 works
1904: G. Ettore, Sinopsi storica dell'Ordine di Celestino V, in Celestino V ed il VI centenario della sua incoronazione, L'Aquila 1804, pp. 371-80; J. Besse, Celestini, in DTHC, II, coll. 2061-68; M. Heimbucher, Die Orden und Kongregationen der katholischen Kirche, I, 3rd ed., Paderborn 1933, pp. 212-14.
The most ancient constitutions are unpublished. Among the published ones are: Constitutiones Coelestinorum O. S. B., Rome 1620, reproduced by L. Holstenius-M. Brockie, Codex Regularum, IV, Augsburg 1759, pp. 497-506; Constitutiones Fratrum Coelestinorum provinciae franco-gallicanae, Paris 1670.
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