Marcellin Champagnat


Marcellin Champagnat

FMS
Official portrait of Marcellin Champagnat
Priest & Founder
Born(1789-05-20)20 May 1789
Le Rosey, France
Died6 June 1840(1840-06-06) (aged 51)
Saint-Chamond, France
Venerated inCatholic Church
Beatified29 May 1955, The Vatican by Pope Pius XII
Canonized18 April 1999, The Vatican by Pope John Paul II
Feast6 June
PatronageEducation, teachers, and simplicity

Marcellin Joseph Benedict Champagnat, FMS (20 May 1789 – 6 June 1840) was a French Catholic religious born in Le Rosey, village of Marlhes, near St. Etienne (Loire), France. He was the founder of the Marist Brothers, a religious congregation of brothers in the Catholic Church devoted to Mary and dedicated to education. His feast day is 6 June, his death anniversary.

Champagnat was ordained as a priest on 22 July 1816 and was part of a group led by Jean-Claude Colin, who founded the Society of Mary, a separate religious congregation to the Marist Brothers teaching order Champagnat founded later. Champagnat was born in the year of the storming of the Bastille, the start of the French Revolution. The religious, political, economic, and social unrest of the times he lived influenced his priorities and life path.