SERRAE
731
SERVANTS
"Representaci6n" in thirty-two articles. Every-
thing save two minor points was decided in his fa-
vour; he then returned to California, late in 1774.
In 1778 he received the faculty to administer the
Sacrament of Confirmation. After he had exercised
his privilege for a year, Governor Neve directed him to
suspend administering the sacrament until he could
present the papal Brief. For nearly two years Father
Serra refrained, and then Viceroy Majorga gave in-
structions to the effect that Father Serra was within
his rights. During the remaining three years of his
life he once more visited the missions from San Diego
to San Francisco, six hundred miles, in order to con-
firm all who had been baptized. He suffered in-
tensely from his crippled leg and from his chest, yet
he would use no remedies. He confirmed 5309 per-
sons, who, with but few exceptions, were Indians con-
verted during the fourteen years from 1770. Besides
extraordinary fortitude, his most conspicuous virtues
were insatiable zeal, love of mortification, self-denial,
and absolute confidence in God. His executive abil-
ity has been especially noticed by non-Catholic
writers. The esteem in which his memory is held
by all classes in California may be gathered from
the fact that Mrs. Stanford, not a Catholic, had a
granite monument erected to him at Monterey. A
bronze statue of heroic size represents him as the
apostolic preacher in Golden Gate Park, San Fran-
cisco. In 1884 the Legislature of California passed a
concurrent resolution making 29 August of that year,
the centennial of Father Serra's burial, a legal holiday.
Of his writings many letters and other documents are
extant. The principal ones are his "Diario" of the
journey from Loreto to San Diego, which was pub-
lished in "Out West" (March to June, 1902), and the
" Representaci6n " before mentioned.
Palou, Nolicias de la Nueia California (San Francisco, 1774) ; Idem, Relacion histdrica de la tida y apostdlicas tareaa del Ven. P. Fr. Junlpero Serra (Mexico City, 1787); Santa Barbara Mission Archives; San Carlos Mission Records; Engelhardt, Missions and Missionaries of California, I (San Francisco, 1908); II (1912); Idem, Franciscans in California (Harbor Springs, Mich., 1897); Bancroft, History of California, I (.San Francisco, 1886); Gleeson, Catholic Church in California, II (San Fran- cisco, 1871); HiTTELL, History of California, I (San Francisco, 1885); James, In and Out of the Missions (New York, 1905).
Zephyrin Engelhardt.
Serrae, titular metropolitan see in Macedonia, more correctly Serrhae, is called Siris by Herodotus (VIII, 115), Sirae by Titus Livius (XLV, iv). Inscrip- tions show the official spelling to have been Sirrha or Sirrhae; the form Serrhae prevailed during the Byzantine period (Hierocles, 639, 10; Stephanius Byzantius, s. v.). The city, now called in Turkish "Seres", is in Eastern Macedonia, about forty-three miles north-east of Salonica in the j)lain of Strv-mon, on the last outposts of the mountains which bound it on the north-east. On his return to the Hellespont, Xerxes left some of his sick followers at Serrae, and here also P. ^milius Paulus, after his victory at Pydna, received a deputation from Perseus. The city possessed great strategic importance under the Byzantine Empire in the wars against the Servians and Bulgars. It was captured by the latter in 1206 and recaptured by the Emperor John Dukas in 1245. Later the Servian, Krai Stephen Du.shan, captured it in turn, was crowned there in 1345, established a Court on the model of that of Byzantium, and married the daughter of Andronicus II. In 1373 it was cap)- tured by a Greek apostate in the service of Sultan Murad I. In 1396, while Sigismund of Hungary was preparing to attack the Ottoman Empire, the Sultan Bayazet had his camp at Seres, where he assembled his Christian allies shortly before the Battle of Nicop- olis. Serds is now the capital of a sanjak in the vilayet of Salonica. It has about 30,000 inhabitants, of whom 13,000 are Turks and the same number Greeks. It carries on a brisk trade in textile and agricultural products. At first Serrae was a suffragan
of Thessalonica, remaining so probably until the
eighth century, when Eastern lllyricum was removed
from Roman jurisdiction and attached to the Patri-
archate of Constantinople. It figures in the "Notitiae
episcopatuum " as an autocephalous archdiocese as
early as the tenth century; at the end of the next
century it had become a metropolitan see without
suffragans, and such is still its status for the Greeks.
Le Quien (Oriens Christ., II, 87) gives a list of fourteen
bishops, but a much more complete list is given in
Papageorgiou's article cited in the bibliography. The
oldest of these bishops is Maximianus or Ma.ximus,
present at the Latrocinium of Ephesus (449) and at
the Council of Chalcedon (451). A gap intervenes
till the end of the tenth century, when Leontius
assisted at a council of Constantinople. Among the
other titulars was Nicetas, formerly a deacon of St.
Sophia, Con.stantinople, and eventually Metropohtan
of Heraclea (Pontus), at the end of the eleventh cen-
tury. He was a prolific writer [see Krumbacher,
"Gesch. der byzant. Litt." (Munich, 1897), 137 sqq.,
211 sqq., 215 sqq., 587, etc.]. Under Michael Palaeo-
logus, a metropolitan of Serrae whose name is un-
known was among the advocates of union with Rome.
In 1491 Manasses became Patriarch of Constantinople
under the name of Maximus. Eubel, "Hierarchia
catholica medii sevi", I, 473, mentions two Latin
metropolitans: Amulphus in 1225 and Pontius in 1358.
Smith, Diet, of Greek and Roman Geogr., s. v. Siris; Boutyras, Diet, of Hist, and Geogr. (in Greek), VII, 479; Leake, Northern Greece, III, 200-210; Demitsas, Macedonica (Athens, 1874), 575- 587; ToMASCHEK, Zur Kunde der Hdmus-Halbinsel (Vienna, 1887), 83; Papageorgiou in Byzantinische Zeilschrift, III (Mu- nich, 1894), 225-329. g. PiixRiDES.
Servants of Mary. See Servites, Order of.
Servants of the Most Blessed Sacrament,
CoxGREGATiox OF THE, an onicr of nuns, founded by the Venerable Picrre-Juli(>n Eymard (q. v.) in 1858, assisted by Mother Margaret of the Blessed Sacrament, with the authorization of Mgr Morlot, Archbishop of Paris. A Decree of Pius IX (21 July, 1871) canonically erected it into a religious con- gregation, and on 8 May, 1885, Leo XIII approved the constitutions. The aim of the society is to render "before all else solemn and perpetual adora- tion to Our Lord Jesus Christ, abiding perpetually in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar for the love of men". "The Congregation of the Servants of the Most Blessed Sacrament devote themselves with all their souls and all their strength to propagate this same worship of adoration and love in the world, especially by means of 'The People's Eucharistic League' in the way that was erected by a Rescript of August 2, 1872 (Bishops and Regulars), by Re- treats of Adoration, and the work of the worship of Jesus Christ"; that is, by work for poor churches, as well as by catechetical instruction to children and to poor or ignorant adults. Each sister is required to make three adorations in the twenty-four hours, of which two are in the day and one at night. The Divine Office is said in choir. The community is contem.plative and cloistered. The mother-house is at Angers, France. The congregation has houses at Lyons (France), founded 29 June, 1874; Paris, founded 1 May, 1876; Binche (Belgium), founded 17 November, 1894. In October, 1903, at the request of Mgr Labrecque, Bishop of Chicoutimi, a house was estabUshed at Chicoutimi on the banks of the Saguenay. The first exposition took place on 22 October, 1903, in the chapel of the Sisters of Good Counsel, who for several months extended hospi- tality to the newly-arrived community. On 25 March, 1906, it took possession of a new convent and on 18 June, 1909, the chapel of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus was consecrated. Canada has now its novitiate. The community numbers thirteen professed of the perpetual vows, and fifteen novices.
