Friedrich Bernard Christian Maassen
United Sees of Macerata and Tolentino
Vicariate Apostolic of Mackenzie
Marie-Edmé-Patrice-Maurice de MacMahon
Joseph-Anna-Marie de Moyria de Mailla
François-Pierre-Gonthier Maine de Biran
Françoise, Marquise de Maintenon
Joseph-Marie, Comte de Maistre
Marcellinus of Civezza, O.F.M.
Margaret of the Blessed Sacrament
Prefecture Apostolic of Mariana Islands
Congregation of the Missionaries of Mariannhill
Sts. Maris, Martha, Audifax, and Abachum
Lucius Perpetuus Aurelianus Marius Maximus
Vicariate Apostolic of Marquesas Islands
Moral and Canonical Aspect of Marriage
Diocese of Marseilles (Massilia)
Vicariate Apostolic of the Marshall Islands
Diocese of Marsico Nuovo and Potenza
Luigi Ferdinando, Count de Marsigli
Missionaries of the Company of Mary
Servants of Mary (Order of Servites)
Society of Mary (Marist Fathers)
St. Mary Frances of the Five Wounds of Jesus
Richard Angelus a S. Francisco Mason
Devises and Bequests for Masses (United States)
Feast of the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maximianus
Caius Julius Verus Maximinus Thrax
Prefecture Apostolic of Mayotte, Nossi-Bé, and Comoro
Charles Joseph Eugene de Mazenod
Abbey and Congregation of Melk
Vicariate Apostolic of Méndez and Gualaquiza
Francisco Sarmiento de Mendoza
Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy
Sisters of Mercy of St. Borromeo
Frédéric-François-Xavier Ghislain de Mérode
Delegation Apostolic of Mesopotamia, Kurdistan, and Armenia
Metal-Work in the Service of the Church
Prince Klemens Lothar Wenzel von Metternich
Francis, Joseph, and Paul Mezger
Military Orders of St. Michael
Giovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola
Congregation of the Sisters of Misericorde
Prefecture Apostolic of Misocco and Calanca
Congregation of Priests of the Mission
Congregation of Missionaries of St. Charles Borromeo
Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales of Annecy
Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle
Mission Indians (of California)
Catholic Indian Missions of Canada
Catholic Indian Missions of the United States
François-Napoléon-Marie Moigno
Diocese of Molfetta, Terlizzi, and Giovinazzo
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Molière
Principality and Diocese of Monaco
Canonical Erection of a Monastery
Monophysites and Monophysitism
Monothelitism and Monothelites
Montagnais Indians (Chippewayans)
Charles-Forbes-René, Comte de Montalembert
Marquis de Louis-Joseph Montcalm-Gozon
Diocese of Monterey and Los Angeles
Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu
Anne, First Duke of Montmorency
Alexis-François Artaud de Montor
Antoine-Jean-Baptiste-Robert Auget, Baron de Montyon
Dioceses of Mostar and Markana-Trebinje
Feast of the Most Pure Heart of Mary
Toribio de Benavente Motolinia
Congregations of Mount Calvary
Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel
Karl Ernst, Freiherr von Moy de Sons
Johann Chrysostomus Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
St. Clair Augustine Mulholland
Baron Eligius Franz Joseph von Münch-Bellinghausen
Archdiocese of Munich-Freising
(Praying folk; participle Pa'el of the Aramaic word meaning "to pray").
An heretical sect which originated in Mesopotamia about 360 and survived in the East until the ninth century. They are also called Euchites from the Greek translation of their Oriental name (euchetai from euchomai, to pray); Adelphians from their first leader; Lampetians from Lampetius, their first priest (ordained about 458); Enthusiasts from their peculiar tenet of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost by Whom they thought themselves inspired or possessed (enthous). The non-Christian sect of the Euphemites were also called Messalians, and Epiphanius (Haer., lxxx), our sole informant about these, considers them the forerunners of the Christian Messalians. The non-Christian Messalians are said to have admitted a plurality of gods, but to have worshipped only one, the Almighty (Pantokrator). They were forcibly suppressed by Christian magistrates and many of them put to death. Hence they became self-styled Martyriani. The Christian Messalians were a kind of Eastern Circumcellions or vagrant Quietists. Sacraments they held to be useless, though harmless, the only spiritual power being prayer, by which one drove out the evil spirit which baptism had not expelled, received the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, and arrived at union with God, becoming so perfect that the passions ceased to trouble. They disregarded discipline in the matter of fasting, wandered from placa to place, and in summer were accustomed to sleep in the streets. To avoid persecution they would conform to ecclesias6tical usages, profess orthodoxy, and deny any heretical doctrines ascribed to them. They engaged in no occupations, were solely occupied in prayer, as they said, or rather in sleep, as Theodoret sarcastically remarks. The intensity of their prayer brought them into immediate communication with the Godhead. When they had reached the passionless state (apatheia, "apathy"), they saw the Trinity, the three Divine Persons becoming one and dwelling within them. They likewise saw the evil spirits that go through the world for the ruin of souls, and trod them under foot. In fact every man had within him a demon, who could only be replaced by the Holy Ghost. Even Christ's body was full of demons once.
Flavian, the Bishop of Antioch, tried to suppress them in his city about 376. By feigning sympathy he made Adelphius disclose his real doctrines; and then he banished him and his followers. They then wandered to the south-east of Asia Minor. Amphilochius of Iconium caused them to be again condemned at the Synod of Side (388 or 390). Letoius, Bishop of Melitene, finding some monasteries tainted with this Quietism, burnt them and drove the wolves from the sheepfold, as Theodoret narrates. The "Asceticus", "that filthy book of this heresy", as it is called in the public acts of the Third General Council (431), was condemned at Ephesus, after it had already been condemned by a Council of Constantinople in 426 and by the local council at which Amphilochius of Side presided. Yet the sect continued to exist. At first it included only laymen. Lampetius, one of the leaders after the middle of the fifth century was a priest, having been ordained by Alypius of Cæsarea. He was degraded from his priesthood on account of unpriestly conduct. He wrote a book called "The Testament". Salmon refers to a fragment of an answer by Severus of Antioch to this work of Lampetius (Wolf, "Anecdota Grfca", III, 182). In Armenia in the middle of the fifth century strict decrees were issued against them, and they were especially accused of immorality; so that their very name in Armenian became the equivalent for "filthy". The Nestorians in Syria did their best to stamp out the evil by legislation; the Messalians ceased to exist under that name, but revived under that of the Bogomili. In the West they seem hardly to have been known; when the Marcianists, who held somewhat the same tenets as the Messalians, were mentioned to Gregory the Great, he professed never to have heard of the Marcian heresy.
Bibliography. EPIPHANICUS, Haer., lxxx; THEODORET, Hist. Ec., IV, x; IDEM, Haer. fab., IV, xi; CYRIL OF ALEX., De Adorat. in Spir. et Verit., III in P.G., LXVIII, 282; TIMOTHEUS in Eccles. Grfc. mon., III, 400 sqq.; TER-MKRTTSCHIAN, Die Paulikianer im byz. Kaiserreich (Leipzig, 1893); PHOTIUS in P.G., CIII, 187 sqq.
J.P. ARENDZEN