John de Matha
(+1213)
The founder of the Trinitarian Order was born,
according to tradition, at Faucon de Barcelonnette
in Provence around mid-12th century.
Little is known with certainty about his early life, though there
have been many detailed biographies published, beginning in the 17th
century. Some 13th
century sources refer to John as magister and magister theologus
in Paris. In 1193/94, he
established the Brothers of the House of the Holy Trinity at Cerfroid (Dép.
de l’Aisne) on a property donated by Margaret of Blois, who later became
the Countess of Burgundy. The
other two pilot-properties were at Planels and Bourg-la-Reine, southeast
and south of Paris respectively. During
the time of the Crusades, the Order was specifically founded for the
ransom of Christians held captive by non-believers and these three initial
property donations were expressly made for that purpose.
Innocent III first granted the Brothers and their holdings his
papal protection on 16 May 1198 and then granted his approbation to the
Order and its Rule of Life on 17 December 1198.
Brother John made the first post-approbation foundation in the port
city of Marseille. The
Order’s expansion, geographic and apostolic, advanced well during the
rest of the founder’s lifetime. The
greatest number of Trinitarian foundations were made in France and Spain
and the founder himself was very much personally involved in this
first-generation expansion of the Order. The broad lines of his life and
work during this time may be traced through the documents which have
survived. In the year 1209,
Innocent III gave the church of St. Thomas-in-Formis (Rome) to the
Trinitarians. Brother John
transferred his residence there and, less than a half dozen years later,
it was there that he died. According
to the epitaph on his sarcophagus, Brother John was buried in the church
of St. Thomas-in-Formis on 21 December 1213.
His remains were take to Madrid in November of 1655.
After a church process which was begun in 1630, the cult of John de
Matha was declared immemorial by Alexander VII on 21 October 1666.
His feast (8 February) was extended to the whole Church by the
Sacred Congregation of Rites on 14 March 1694, a decision confirmed by
Innocent XII. While a lesser
part of his relics remain in the custody of the cloistered Trinitarian
nuns in Madrid, the greater part is kept in the Trinitarian church in
Salamanca. The sarcophagus in
which John had been buried in Rome is now in the Archeological Museum in
Madrid. Since the calendar
reforms of Vatican II, the Trinitarians today celebrate the feast of St.
John de Matha on 17 December, which tradition gives as the date of his
death, a date which coincides with the 15th anniversary of
papal approbation.