Upcoming Basilian Bicentennial Masses

To commemorate the Congregation of St. Basil’s 200 years of service through education and evangelization, special Basilian Bicentennial Masses will be held in:

• Rochester, New York
  Sunday, November 20 at 10 a.m.
  Hermance Family Chapel of St. Basil the Great
  3690 East Ave, Rochester, NY
• Toronto, Ontario
  Sunday, November 20 at 12 p.m.
  St. Basil’s Catholic Parish
  50 St. Joseph Street
  Father Kevin Storey, CSB, Superior General of the Congregation, will preside
• Windsor, Ontario
  Monday, November 21 at 4 p.m.
  Our Lady of Assumption Church
  2735 University Ave. W.
  Bishop Ronald P. Fabbro, CSB of the Diocese of London will preside
• Houston, Texas
  Monday, November 21 at 5 p.m.
  St. Anne Catholic Community
  2140 Westheimer Road

“Founded in the small town of Annonay, France, the Basilian Fathers’ ten founders would barely recognize the congregation of today. Our founders, who were responding to the needs of their time, would be proud and thrilled at what their initial actions have produced. The same Basilian spirit and sense of community our founders embodied continues to permeate all our apostolates that today spread across three continents, five countries, and three languages,” said Father Storey.

Banner installations depicting the Congregation’s storied history will be on display in the churches. The banners feature a timeline of how this small community’s founding mission of providing Catholic education to those in need took the Congregation from its birthplace in Annonay, France to the New World in Canada and the United States in the 19^th century and Latin America in Mexico and Colombia in the 20^th century.

Basilians first came to Canada in 1850, when Bishop Armand de Charbonnel of Toronto, Ontario saw a need for Catholic education among the poor Irish Catholic families in his diocese. As a Basilian student in Annonay, he invited his former teachers to come to Canada. In 1852, the Basilians opened St. Michael’s College offering in the French style, a combination of high school and post-secondary education.

The Basilians came to the aid of various Bishops who needed Christian educators in both France and the New World. They established schools and seminaries across North America including Owen Sound, Ontario (1863), Sandwich, (now Windsor) Ontario (1870), Amherstburg, Ontario (1878), Detroit, Michigan (1886), Waco, Texas (1899) Houston, Texas (1900), LaPorte, Texas (1901), and Chatham, New Brunswick (1910).

Today, the Basilians minister in parishes in four countries and administer three high schools in Canada and the United States. Their work in education continues at the post-secondary level in the areas of teaching, administration, and research, campus ministry, publications, and missions work. They provide formation to lay Catholic educators through the Basilian Network for Education and the New Evangelization (BNENE) to train Catholic teachers with the foundation for sound Christian education. They also serve as missionaries, hospital chaplains, licensed counselors and therapists, retreat directors, peace-keepers, and more.