Dominican Order

Background

In the twelfth century the Cathars (Albigensians) were widespread in southern France, particularly around Albi and Toulouse. The Roman Church condemned them as heretics, and Pope Innocent III called for action against them. Dominic (1170–1221), who was active during this period, was born Domingo de Guzmán in Caleruega, Spain. He was a canon of the cathedral of Osma (a priest attached to the cathedral who lived in community with other clergy). According to tradition, while returning from a journey to northern Europe around 1203–1206, he saw firsthand how widely the Cathar movement had spread, and he thereafter devoted himself to winning people over through preaching.

Development

• 1206: Dominic gathered women who had left the Cathars and founded a convent at Prouille, France. For this reason, some sources date the origin of the order to 1206.
• 1208: The papal legate (the pope's appointed representative) Peter of Castelnau was murdered. The pope then called on Christian rulers to take up arms, and the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars began.
• 1215: Dominic established a community with six companions in a house donated by a landowner in Toulouse. Bishop Fulk of Toulouse authorized them to preach throughout the region. Rather than drafting a new rule, the community adopted the Rule of Augustine and the customs of the Premonstratensians.
• December 22, 1216: Pope Honorius III formally approved the community as the Order of Preachers. Some sources date this approval to January 1217.
• 1217: From this year onward, members were sent into regions inhabited by Cathars.
• 1220: At the pope's invitation, the order took up residence at the Basilica of Santa Sabina in Rome, which remains the order's mother house to this day.
• August 6, 1221: Dominic died in Bologna. In 1234 Pope Gregory IX canonized him.

Results and Influence

After Dominic's death, the order spread rapidly throughout Europe, including England, Scandinavia, Hungary, and Germany. Its members lived a mendicant life, owning no property and depending on the support of others (that is, voluntarily embracing poverty and living by alms). For this reason, they and the Franciscans are called the two great mendicant orders of the medieval church. While living under strict discipline, they devoted themselves to scholarship, preaching, and teaching. The order is also known for spreading Marian devotion (acts of piety honoring the Virgin Mary), most notably the Rosary, and it directs the Confraternity of the Rosary, a lay devotional association founded in 1475.

In 1587 the order established the Province of the Holy Rosary (a regional unit of the order) to take charge of regions where the gospel had not yet been preached, and the province worked in the Philippines and East Asia. The martyrdom in Japan of a missionary from this province who had been preparing for a mission to Joseon-era Korea is regarded as the order's first connection with Korea. In 1982 the order's Asian chapter discussed establishing a presence in Korea, and in 1987 the Korean mission was entrusted to the Province of the Holy Rosary. At the invitation of the Catholic Archdiocese of Seoul, three missionaries arrived in Korea in May 1990. The order began accepting Korean candidates in 1992 and held a blessing ceremony for its priory in Miari, Seoul, in 1994. Its communities are located in Gangbuk District, Seoul, and in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province. Among women's congregations, the Missionary Sisters of St. Dominic came to Korea in 1984, and the Dominican Sisters of Our Lady of the Rosary followed in 2003.

Assessment

The Catholic Church regards the Dominican Order as having contributed greatly to the renewal of the church in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries through its poverty and preaching. Protestant accounts of church history likewise present it, together with the Franciscans, as one of the foremost mendicant orders of the Middle Ages. Its founder, Dominic, is reportedly commemorated not only in the Catholic Church but also in the Anglican and Lutheran churches.

At the same time, the Dominican Order originated with the aim of countering heresy. During the same period, the Albigensian Crusade carried out armed suppression in southern France, and from 1229 the Inquisition proceeded against the Cathars. For this reason, the order's early history is sometimes assessed by weighing its ideal of persuasion through preaching against the reality of a contemporary church that suppressed heresy by force.