CELESTINI, ORDER OF. — Founded by St. Peter Celestine (Pope Celestine V) around 1240 in the solitude of Mount Maiella. Urban IV, on 14 June 1263, gave the Rule of St. Benedict to the new institute, which thus became the Congregation of the C. (originally called the friars of Peter Morrone) of the Benedictine Order, confirmed by Gregory X on 22 March 1274.
They observed the Rule of St. Benedict in its strictness with particular statutes, of which a first draft, along with privileges, is found in the fine bull *Etsi cunctos* of Celestine V (L'Aquila, 27 September 1294). The monks were also granted the faculty to hear confessions and preach, which brought them close 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. Former abbots were called *coabbates*. All other monasteries were governed by priors until 1616, when Paul V distinguished the monasteries into abbeys (with at least 12 monks and lay brothers) and priories (with 6 monks and lay brothers). The habit consisted of a white tunic and black hood, and for choir, a black cowl. The Order’s coat of arms was a cross with an S on the lower shaft, sometimes—especially in France—flanked by two fleur-de-lis. At the height of its prosperity, the Order numbered about 150 monasteries, most of them (nearly a hundred) in Italy. In France, where the Order was introduced by Philip IV the Fair (1300), it attained a certain flourishing with 21 monasteries, but the authority of the abbot general was supplanted by the provincial superior introduced toward the end of the Western Schism. Many disputes arose between the two branches, especially because the French had managed to occupy the monasteries of S. Benedetto at Norcia and of S. Maria di Collemaggio at L'Aquila.
In 1368 the Order was introduced into Bohemia by Charles IV at Oybyn, whence it spread to Königstein. There was a house in England, as well as in Spain (Barcelona) and in Belgium (Hevelés near Louvain). Notable men were not lacking in learning and even in holiness.
Suppression began in France through the work of the Commission of Regulars. There were then (1768) 19 houses with 165 religious. Clement XIV sought in vain to save them with a reform (1 March 1773). Pius VI suppressed them in France between 1776 and 1789. No monastery survived the French Revolution. In the Kingdom of Naples, most of the C. were deprived of their revenues in 1789 and suppressed by the government in 1807; in the rest of Italy they were suppressed by Napoleon in 1810 and never restored. They did, however, still have three bishops: F. M. Cipriani of Veroli (1814–43); F. S. Durini of Marsi (1818–23), later of Aversa (1823–44); and L. Zannini of Veroli (1854–1875), d. c. 1861.
An attempt to revive the C. in France, made by Fr. Giovanni Aurélien and authorized by the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars with a rescript of 9 March 1872, failed. The “Poor Hermits of Pope Celestine,” Franciscan Spirituals authorized by Celestine V in 1294 and suppressed by Boniface VIII in 1302, must be carefully distinguished from the C.
The earliest constitutions are unpublished. Among the printed ones are: *Constitutiones Coelestinorum O. S. B.*, Rome 1629, reproduced by L. Holstenius–M. Brockie, *Codex Regularum*, IV, Augsburg 1759, pp. 497–596; *Constitutiones Fratrum Coelestinorum praedinigeriae franco-gallicanae*, Paris 1670.