MERCURIAN, EBERHARD. — Fourth Superior General of the Society of Jesus, born at Marcour (Belgium) in 1514, died in Rome on 1 August 1580. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1548; he was rector of the College of Perugia, provincial of Flanders, assistant for Germany, and was elected Superior General on 23 April 1573.
He zealously fostered the Order’s interior development, publishing the “Summary” of the Ignatian Constitutions and providing a body of “Rules,” both common to all and specific to the various offices. Favored by Gregory XIII, he was entrusted in Rome with the English Seminary, while the Roman and German Colleges were enlarged; he initiated and promoted many missions among heretics and infidels in England, Poland, Transylvania, Sweden, and Russia; among the Maronites of Lebanon, and in India, China, and Japan, where he sent as many as ninety-three members, including A. Valignano, M. Ricci, and the blessed R. Aquaviva. He gave vigorous impetus to extensive apostolic missions in Catholic Europe (the Marquisate of Saluzzo, Dalmatia, Greece, and the islands of the archipelago). At his death the Order numbered 21 provinces and 5,000 members.