features / The way of Augustine: 1

Rome’s Church of Santa Maria del Popolo is best-known today for its cache of Caravaggios. But in March 1256, long before the Caravaggios arrived, Pope Alexander IV convoked a gathering there that would unite into a single religious order various groups of Italian hermits, most of whom followed St Augustine’s rule (known today as the Grand Union). In 1244 Pope Innocent IV had already united a group of hermits into one religious family (known today as the Little Union). These hermits (chiefly Tuscan) soon spread from Italy into France, Germany, England and beyond. But what emerged from the 1256 gathering was a new entity, a single Order of Hermits of St Augustine (since 1968, shortened to the Order of St Augustine) gathered from yet more groups of Italian eremitical congregations under the leadership of a single prior general.

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