The Blue Scapular Prayer Book

15 of the 18 th century, the Marians had also founded a monastery in Rome. This chain of dynamic growth was broken with the political downfall of Poland, and subsequent partitions of this nation’s territory at the end of the 18 th and then in 19 th centuries. In 1864, on the strength of a decree issued by the Czarist authorities, the Marian Order – along with other Catholic Orders – was suppressed and began to die out slowly. In 1909, on the eve of the community’s total extinction, Fr. George Matulaitis-Matulewicz (1871-1927), a Lithuanian-born professor of the Spiritual Academy St. Petersburg (Russia), and later the Bishop of Vilnius, joined the Marians in secret from the Czarist authorities. He started the work of renewal and reform of the Order, bringing it back to life. In 1987, Pope St. John Paul II beatified him. Currently, the Marians number about 500 priests and brothers working in 19 countries around the world, including missions in South America, Africa, and Asia.