A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

In England, oratorios have been much used in our cathedrals. Among the most celebrated oratorios are the Messiah of Handel, and the Creation of Haydn.

ORATORY. A name given by Christians to certain places of religious worship.

In ecclesiastical antiquity, the term houses of prayer, or oratories, is frequently given to churches in general, of which there are innumerable instances in ancient Christian writers. But in some canons the name oratory seems confined to private chapels, or places of worship set up for the convenience of private families, yet still depending on the parochial churches, and differing from them in this, that they were only places of prayer, but not for celebrating the communion; or, if that were at any time allowed to private families, yet, at least, upon great and solemn festivals, they were to resort for communion to the parish churches.—Broughton.

ORATORY, PRIESTS OF THE. There are two congregations of monks, one in Italy, the other in France, which are called by this name.

The priests of the oratory in Italy had for their founder, Philip de Neri, a native of Florence, who, in the year 1548, founded at Rome the Confraternity of the Holy Trinity. This society originally consisted of but fifteen poor persons, who assembled in the church of St. Saviour in campo, every first Sunday in the month, to practise the exercises of piety prescribed by the holy founder. The pope gave leave to assemble in the church of St. Girolamo dell Carita, from the Oratorio or chapel in which church they derived their name. Afterwards, their number increasing, by the addition to the society of several persons of distinction, Neri proceeded to establish an hospital for the reception of poor pilgrims, who, coming to Rome to visit the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul, were obliged, for want of a lodging, to lie in the streets, and at the doors of the churches. For this charitable purpose, Pope Paul IV. gave to the society the parochial church of St. Benedict, close by which church was built an hospital so large, that, in the Jubilee year, 1600, it received 44,500 men, and 25,500 women, who came in pilgrimage to Rome.

Philip Neri, besides this charitable foundation for pilgrims, held spiritual conferences at Rome, in a large chamber accommodated in the form of an oratory: in which he was assisted by the famous Baronius, author of the “Ecclesiastical Annals.” Here were delivered lectures of religion and morality, and the auditors were instructed in ecclesiastical history. The assembly always ended with prayers, and hymns to the glory of God; after which, the founder, and his companions, visited the churches and hospitals, and took care of the sick. And now it was that this religious society began to be called Priests of the Oratory.

In 1574, the Florentines at Rome, with the permission of Pope Gregory XIII., built a very spacious oratory, in which Neri continued his religious assemblies. The pope likewise gave him the parochial church of Vallicella, and, the same year, approved the constitutions he had drawn up for the government of his congregation, of which St. Philip himself was the first general.

This new institute soon made a great progress, and divers other establishments were made on the same model; particularly at Naples, Milan, Fermo, and Palermo. The founder having resigned the office of general, he was succeeded therein by Baronius, who was afterwards promoted to the dignity of a cardinal. Neri died the 25th of May, 1595, and was canonized in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV. After his death, this congregation made a further progress in Italy, and has produced several cardinals and eminent writers, as Baronius, Oderic Rainaldi, and others.

The priests of the Oratory in France were established upon the model of those in Italy, and owe their rise to Cardinal Berulle, a native of Champagne; who resolved upon this foundation, in order to revive the splendour of the ecclesiastical state, which was greatly sunk through the miseries of the civil wars, the increase of heresies, and a general corruption of manners. To this end he assembled a community of ecclesiastics, in 1611, in the suburb of St. James, where is at present the famous monastery of Val-de-Grace. They obtained the king’s letters patent for their establishment; and, in 1613, Pope Paul V. approved this congregation under the title of the Oratory of Jesus.

This congregation consisted of two sorts of persons; the one, as it were, incorporated, the other only associates. The former governed the houses of this institute; the latter were only employed in forming themselves to the life and manners of ecclesiastics. And this was the true spirit of this congregation, in which they taught neither human learning, nor theology, but only the virtues of the ecclesiastical life.