RELIGIOUS OF OUR LADY OF MERCY. — In 1864, while Bishop of Nancy, Monsignor Carlo Lavigerie founded in that city a women’s institute for the education of girls, known as the Sisters of the Assumption. In 1867, upon being appointed Archbishop of Algiers, he summoned some of them to join him in his missionary apostolate.
The special purpose of the Institute was expanded to meet the demands of its new field of work. To foster a more immediate dependence on the founder, the motherhouse was transferred from Nancy to Aix-en-Provence. In 1885 the Institute was aggregated to the Order of the Mercedarians and assumed its present name. The habit was also changed from black to white, similar to that of the Mercedarians. The sisters are divided into two classes: choir sisters and lay sisters. They received the decree of praise on March 25, 1912; their Constitutions were approved provisionally on June 17, 1931, and definitively on May 6, 1941. Today there are 200 sisters in 25 houses.