LÉPICIER, ALEXIS-HENRI-MARIE. - Cardinal and theologian of the Order of the Servants of Mary, born at Vaucouleurs (Lorraine) on 28 Feb. 1863, died at Rome on 20 May 1936. He entered religious life in London at the age of 15 and was ordained priest at 22 (1885); he was sent to Rome to the Athenaeum of Propaganda Fide, where he brilliantly obtained degrees in philosophy and theology. The future card. Satolli hailed him as the most accomplished Thomist among his disciples.
Having returned to England in 1890 as master of novices, he went on to replace 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 passed through all the hierarchical ranks of the Order: founder and first rector of the International College of S. Alessio Falconieri in Rome, then general consultor, procurator general, 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 and shortly afterwards appointed Prefect of the S. Congregation of Religious, he represented the Supreme Pontiff as his legate in 1929 at the centenary celebrations of St. Joan of Arc at Orléans, in 1930 at the International Eucharistic Congress of Carthage, and in 1935 at the Regional Council of Malta.
Among his numerous publications, mention should be made of the Institutiones theologiae dogmaticae ad textum s. Thomae (25 vols., Rome, 1901 ff.).