Society of Saint-Sulpice

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The Society of Saint-Sulpice is a Catholic religious order.

It was founded in Paris by Jean-Jacques Olier in 1642 for the purpose of educating priests. The Sulpician seminaries, above all the one in Paris, were famed for their solid orthodox teaching and high moral tone. In the 18th century, they became fashionable, attracting the sons of the nobility, and producing a large percentage of the French Church's hierarchy.

The huge classicizing Late Baroque Church of Saint-Sulpice, where the Sulpicians had their headquarters, is much visited by tourists in Paris. Its building in several campaigns, lasted from 1646, when the cornerstone was laid of a Sulpician church to replace the cramped Gothic structure, until 1745, when the full church was finally consecrated, and occupied the talents of a series of architects. The chancel was the work of Christophe Gamard, Louis Le Vau and Daniel Gittard, but the work was completed by Gilles-Marie Oppenord, a student of François Mansart, 1714-1745. The façade, originally by Giovanni Servandoni has been modified by Jean Chalgrin and others. Nineteenth-century redecorations to the interior, after some Revolutionary damage, when Saint-Sulpice became a Temple of Victory, include work of Eugène Delacroix. Jules Massenet set an act of Manon at fashionable Saint-Sulpice.

Its organ, in Chalgrin's magnificent case, was one of France's most famous even before it was enlarged in 1862 into one of the "100-stop" Romantic instruments by the 19th-century organ-builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll; its organists have also been renowned starting with Nicolas Sejan in the 18th century. Charles-Marie Widor (organist 1870-1933) and Marcel Dupré (organist 1934-1971) were two of great organists of the 20th century.

Saint Sulpicius, after whom the order and the church are named, was a 7th century bishop of Bourges in Aquitaine noted for his piety and his resistance to the tyranny of the Merovingian kings of France.

The Sulpicians played a major role in the founding of the Canadian city of Montréal, where they engaged in missionary activities, as well as in the training of priests. In 1657 Olier, shortly before his death, sent four priests (Gabriel de Queylus, Sovart, d'Allet, and Galinier) to take over from the Jesuit Fathers. In 1794, twelve Sulpicians fled persecution by the National Convention and emigrated to Montreal, Quebec. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Sulpicians of Montreal would have become extinct had not the English Government humanely opened Canada to the priests persecuted during the French Revolution. Under the previous French Colonial government, the King of France had granted the Sulpician Order large parcels of land in Montreal. The Catholic Encyclopedia also records that after lengthy disputes, in 1840 the possessions of the Sulpician Order, coveted by the English business agents, were recognized by the British Crown and the Sulpicians were free to keep all their holdings and to continue undisturbed their work for the Church and society. Included in their vast land holdings was the property through which the Lachine Canal was built and after convincing the government to designate the property on the banks of the canal as industrial zones, the Order began selling off parcels for industrial development at enormous profits that helped finance their good works.

On 10 July 1791 St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore was established by four Sulpicians: Francis Charles Nagot, Anthony Gamier, Michael Levadoux, and John Tessier who were fleeing the French Revolution. They purchased the One Mile Tavern on the edge of the city, dedicated the house to the Blessed Virgin, and in October opened classes with five students whom they had brought from France, becoming the first Suplician Order in the United States. In 1898, at the invitation of San Francisco archbishop Patrick William Riordan, the Sulpicians founded Saint Patrick Seminary in Menlo Park, California.