MENIATES, ELIA. - Greek bishop and controversialist, b. in 1669, d. in 1714. At the age of 10 he came from Cephalonia, his homeland, to Venice, where he completed his studies and began teaching and preaching. At Constantinople he held political offices, as an attaché to the Venetian consul. In 1711 he was made bishop of Cernica and Calabria.
He wrote the book Πέτρα σκανδάλου (Leipzig 1718), in the first, historical part of which he gave the version current among the Byzantines concerning the Photian schism, while in the second he treated the five divergences discussed at the Council of Florence. The book was translated into Latin, into German (1787), into Romanian (1844) and into Russian (1847). He also published a collection of sermons: Διδαγάι (Venice 1720); in them M., against the opinion already then prevailing at Constantinople, defended the Immaculate Conception.
Bibliography3 works
Maurizio Gordillo
• MENNI, BENEDETTO. - Restorer of the Hospitallers of St. John of God (v.) in Spain and founder of the Hospitaller Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and of the B. V. Mary (v.), b. at Milan on 11 March 1841, d. at Dinan (France) on 24 Apr. 1914.
A novice on 1 May 1860 and solemnly professed on 17 May 1864, he was ordained a priest on 14 Oct. 1866. The prior general, Giuseppe Maria Alfieri, entrusted him with reviving the Spanish branch of the Order, which had been suppressed by the confiscatory laws of 1835-36. Furnished with a special mandate from Pius IX, on 25 Apr. 1867, without means and ignorant of the language, he reached Barcelona, where that same year, with the help of the bishop and of pious benefactors, he was able to open a modest asylum for poor, rachitic and scrofulous children. There he gathered some confreres from Italy, France and Spain, with whom he began the Spanish rebirth of the Order. M. had much to suffer both at the hands of his own and at those of the revolutionaries of 1868 and especially of those of 1873, who came close to shooting him. He took refuge temporarily in France, but the following year he returned to northern Spain, bloodied by civil war, as a delegate of the Red Cross. Once internal order had been re-established, M. founded in 1876 at Ciempozuelos, in the vicinity of Madrid, the psychiatric hospital (insane asylum) which became the driving center of the restored Spanish branch that later extended to Portugal (1893) and even to Mexico (1901). At the time of the constitution of the Spanish province (1884) M. was chosen as its first provincial. Having realized the need for a female congregation to care for the sick women admitted to the hospitals he was erecting, M. in 1880, with the collaboration of Maria de las Angustias Giménez and Giuseppina Recio, established the Hospitaller Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and of the B. V. M. Summoned to Rome, he was subsequently apostolic visitor (1909) and prior general of the order (21 Apr. 1911), an office from which he resigned for reasons of health on 19 June 1912. His constant ideal was to love and serve God by alleviating the sufferings of his neighbor. A man of great strength of character and an indefatigable worker, he left a widespread reputation for a holy life, so much so that the proceedings for his beatification are already deposited at the S. Congregation of Rites.
Bibliography3 works
A. Pietro Frutaz