ALEXIS-HENRI-MARIE LÉPICIER. - Cardinal and theologian of the Order of the Servants of Mary, born at Vaucouleurs (Lorraine) on 28 February 1863, died in Rome on 20 May 1936. At the age of fifteen he entered the religious life in London, and at twenty-two was ordained priest (1885). He was then sent to Rome to study at the Athenaeum of Propaganda Fide, where he earned a brilliant degree in philosophy and theology. The future Cardinal Satolli hailed him as the most accomplished Thomist among his disciples.
Returning to England in 1890 as master of novices, he later succeeded Satolli in the chair of dogmatic theology at the Athenaeum of Propaganda Fide (1892).
Consultor to various Roman Congregations, he was entrusted with the office of Apostolic Visitor to the dioceses of England and Scotland. At the same time he ascended through all the ranks of his Order: founder and first rector of the International College of St Alexander Falconieri in Rome, then general consultor, general procurator, and in 1913, Prior General of the Order. On 22 May 1924 he was consecrated titular archbishop of Tarsus and appointed Apostolic Visitor to the East Indies; a year later he was sent as Apostolic Visitor to Eritrea and Abyssinia. Created cardinal in 1927, he was soon named Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Religious. As papal legate he represented the Supreme Pontiff at the centenary celebrations of St Joan of Arc in Orléans in 1929, at the International Eucharistic Congress in Carthage in 1930, and at the Regional Council of Malta in 1935.
Among his numerous publications, the Institutiones theologicae dogmaticae ad textum s. Thomae (25 vols., Rome 1901 ff.) deserve special mention.