OLINDA
242
OLIVA
The seminary was at first installed in thn presbytery,
but very soon (1 Oct., 1G42) removed to a little house
in the vicinity, M. de Foix being placed in charge by
Father Olier. The beginnings were in great poverty,
which lasted many years, for Olier would never allow
any revenues from the parish to be expended except on
parish needs. From the start he designed to make
it a national seminary and regarded as providential
the fact that the parish of St-Sulpice and its seminary
depended directly on the Holy See. In the course of
two years students came to it from about twenty dio-
ceses of France. Some attended the courses at the
Sorbonne, others followed t hose given in the seminary.
His seminarians were initiated into parochial work,
being employed very fruitfully in teaching catechism.
At the Sorbonne their piety, it appears, had a very
marked influence. The seminary, fulfilling the hopes
of Father Olier, not only sent apostolic priests into all
parts of France, but became the model according to
which seminaries were founded throughout the king-
dom. Its rules, approved by the General Assembly
of the Clergy in 1651, were adopted in many new es-
tablishments. Within a few years. Father Olier, at
the earnest solicitation of the bishops, sent priests
to found seminaries in a few dioceses, the first at
Nantes in 1648. It was not his intention to establish
a congregation to conduct a number of seminaries in
France, but merely to lend priests for the foundation
of a seminary to any bishop and to recall them after
their work was well established. The repeated re-
quests of bishops, considered by him as indications
of God's will, caused him to modify his plan, and
to accept a few seminaries permanently. The so-
ciety which formed around him at St-Sulpice was not
erected into a religious congregation; it continued
as a community of secular priests, following a com-
mon life but bound by no special vows, whose aim
it should be to live perfectly the life of secular priests.
He wished it to remain a small company, decreeing
that it should never consist of more than seventy-two
members, besides the superior and his twelve assistants.
This regulation remained in force till circumstances
induced Father Emery to abolish the limitation.
Father Oher's arduous labours brought on a stroke of apoplexy in February, 1652. He resigned his cure into the hands of M. de Bretonvilliers and on regaining sufficient strength visited watering-places in search of health, by command of his physicians, and made many pilgrimages. On his return to Paris, his old energy and enthusiasm reasserted themselves, especially in his warfare against Jansenism. A second stroke, at Peray in September, 1653, rendered him thenceforth a paralytic. His last years were full of intense suffer- ing, both bodily and mental, which he bore with the utmost sweetness and resignation. They were years of prayer, but indeed the whole life of this servant of God, despite his immense external activity, was a prayer; and his principal devotion was to the inner life of Christ. His visions and his mysticism caused the Jansenists to ridicule him as a visionary; but they, as well as all others, acknowledged his sanctity and the singular purity of his intentions. His numerous as- cetical writings show him a profound master of spirit- ual doctrine, and well deserve a close study. His great friend, St. Vincent de Paul, who was with him at his death, considered him a saint; and Father Faber, in his "Growth in Holiness" (Baltimore ed., p. 376) says of him: "Of all the uncanonized servants of God whose lives I have read, he most resembles a canon- ized Saint." (See Saint-Sulpice, Society of.)
Faillon, Viede M. OKct- (3 vols., 4th ed., Paris, 1873). the chiaf printed source of later works; Letourneatj, Le Ministers pastoral de J. J. Olier (Paris, 1905): Idem, La Mission de J. J. Olier (Paris. 1906); De FRnoES, J. J. Olier (Paris, 1904); Thompson, Life of JeanJacquet Olier (London); Leah, The Revival of Priestly Life in France (London. 1894); Bertrand. Bibliothique Sulpicienne (Paris. 1900). contains a complete list of Olier's published and un- published writings. MiONE has edited his writings in one volume (Paris, — ). A few chapters of a new life of Olier, by Monnier,
were published in the Bulletin Trimestriel des anciens iUves de S
Stilpice (Paris, 1910). Thoy suffice to show that this new biog-
raphy, by its critical acumen, complete knowledge and literary
qualities, will supplant all hitherto published,
John F, Fenlon.
Olinda, Diocese of, in the north-east of Brazil, suffragan of San Salvador de Bahia. Erected into a vicariate Apostolic by Paul V (15 July, 1614), who annexed to it the Prefecture Apostolic of Sao Luiz do Maranhao, Olinda was created a bishopric by Inno- cent XI on 22 November, 1676 (Constitution "Ad Sacram"). Its most distinguished prelate was Thomas of the Incarnation (1774-85), author of "Historia ecclesia; Lusitania;" (Coimbra, 1759). From its original territory Leo XIII erected the Sees of Parahyba (1S92) and Alagoas (1900). It is now coextensive with the State of Pemambuco, Iving be- tween 7° and 10° 40' S. latitude, and 34° 35' and 42° 10' \y. longitude, having an area of 49,575 square miles. The maritime regions are low, fertile, and well settled: the hinterland forms a plateau 500 to 700 feet high, is arid, and sparsely populated. The episcopal city was originally Olinda, founded by Duarte Coelho Pereira in 1534. It was held by the Dutch from 1630 till 1654, who established, a few miles south, a new capital, Moritzstadt, now known as Recife, or Pemam- buco, an important seaport having a population of 190,000. The episcopal residence has been trans- ferred thither, to the section called Boa Vista. Per- nambuco has a university, five hospitals (one in charge of the Sisters of Mercy), a college, and many churches, the first being dedicated to Nossa Senhora da Con- ceicao. Outside the city are the pilgrimages of Nossa Senhora dos Prazeres and Nossa Senhora de Monte. A Benedictine abbey founded at Olinda in 1.595, was re-established on 1.5 August, 1885, from Beuron in Hohenzollern, and is in personal union with the abbey founded at Parahyba in 1903. The present Bishop of Olinda, Mgr Luiz Raymundo da Silva Brit to (b. at Sao Bento do Peri, 24 Aug., 1840; ordained, 19 July, 1864; elected, 18 Feb., 1901), succeeded Mgr Manuel dos Santos Pereira (b. 1827; consecrated, 1893). The diocese contains 81 parishes, 365 filial churches and chapels, 88 secular and 22 regular priests; the popu- lation is 1,178,000, all Catholics, except about 4000 Protestants.
Galanti, Historia do Brazil (Sao Paulo, 1896) ; Tollenare, Notas Dominicaes (Recife, 1906); DiAS, O Brazil Actual (Rio de Janeiro, 1905),
A. A. MacErlean.
Oliva, a suppressed Cistercian abbey near Danzig in Pomerania, founded with the assistance of the dukes of Pomerania some time between 1 170-78. After the extinction of the dukes of Pomerania in 1295, Oliva became part of Poland. From 1309-1466 it was un- der the sovereignty of the Teutonic Order; from 1466- 1772 it .again formed part of Poland; from 1772-1807 it belonged to Prussia; from 1807-14 to the free city Danzig. In 1831 it was suppressed ; the abbey church, a three-naved brick structure in the Romanesque and Gothic style, became the Catholic parish church of the town of Oliva; and nearly all the other buildings were torn down.
In 1224 and in 1234 the abbey was burnt down and its monks killed by the heathen Prussians; in 1350 it was destroyed by fire; in 1433 it was pillaged and partly torn down by the Hussites; in 1577 it was pil- laged and almost entirely destroyed by the Protestant soldiers of Danzig, in 1626 and in 1656 it was pillaged by the Swedes. The monks of Oliva have been power- ful factors in the Christianization of north-eastern Germany. The dukes of Pomerania and the Teu- tonic Order liberally rewarded them with large tracts of land.
When Oliva came under the sovereignty of Poland in 1466, it refused to join the Polish province of Cis- tercians, because most of its monks were Germans.
