MARIAVITI. - A pseudomystical sect founded in 1906 in Poland by the excommunicated priest Jan Kowalski and the visionary Felicia Kozłowska (1862–1922). Having been received into the Union of Utrecht, from which their faith doctrine—based on quietism and identical to that of the "Old Catholics"—derives its influence, the Mariaviti profess a special cult to Mary the Small, whence their name (Mariae vitam imitari), and additionally practice a particular devotion to the Eucharist. Only recently have they rejected the sacrament of Penance.
Numbering about 200,000 in 1911, they had dwindled to less than half by 1925, after the Old Catholic episcopal conference severed relations with them due to their excesses of fanaticism toward the two founders and the introduction of the so-called "mystical marriages" between Mariavite priests and nuns. At present they number just over 50,000, with one archbishop, three bishops, thirty priests, and five hundred nuns. The Mariaviti live according to the Franciscan Rule, with priests observing the First Order, nuns the Second, and the laity the Third.