Mendicant orders

Mendicant orders are, primarily, certain Roman Catholic religious orders that have adopted for their male members a lifestyle of poverty, traveling, and living in urban areas for purposes of preaching, evangelization, and ministry, especially to the poor. At their foundation these orders rejected the previously established monastic model. This model prescribed living in one stable, isolated community where members worked at a trade and owned property in common, including land, buildings and other wealth. By contrast, the mendicants avoided owning property at all, did not work at a trade, and embraced a poor, often itinerant lifestyle. They depended for their survival on the goodwill of the people to whom they preached. The members of these orders are not called monks but friars. The term "mendicant" is also used with reference to some non-Christian religions to denote holy persons committed to an ascetic lifestyle, which may include members of religious orders and individual holy persons. The Second Council of Lyon (1274) established four main mendicant orders, created in the first half of the 13th century: The Order of Friars Minor (Franciscans) The Carmelites (Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel) The Order of Preachers (Dominicans) The Augustinians (Hermits of St. Augustine) The other mendicant orders recognized by the Holy See today are the Trinitarians – Order of the Most Blessed Trinity, sometimes called the Red Friars, founded 1193. Mercedarians – Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy, founded 1218; and after a reform Discalced Mercedarians. Servites – Order of Servants of Mary, founded 1233 by the Seven Holy Men of Florence, Italy. The order was suppressed by the Second Council of Lyon in 1272, on the basis of the restrictions in the decree Ne nimium of 1215; the suppression was not fully enforced and was subsequently overturned by Pope Benedict XI in his Bull, Dum levamus, of 11 February 1304. Minims – Hermits of St. Francis of Paola, founded 1436.