Bartholomites

1. An order of Armenian monks. SEE ARMENIA.

2. A congregation of secular priests, who take their name from Bartholomew Holzhauser, who founded the order at Salzburg, August 1st, 1640. Pope Innocent XI approved their constitutions in 1680 and 1684. This congregation was established for the purpose of forming good priests and pastors, and was governed by a chief president, whose duty it was to maintain uniformity of discipline throughout the congregation, and by diocesan presidents, who were to attend to the same thing in their respective dioceses, by watching over the curates and other ecclesiastics belonging to their institution, visiting them annually, and reporting the result of their visitations to the ordinary. Curates belonging to this institute were never placed singly in any cure; an assistant priest was almost always appointed with each curate, who was paid either out of the revenues of the parish, or by the revenues of some richer parish, likewise filled by a Bartholomite, if the former be too poor. They had many members in Germany, France, Italy, Hungary, Poland, and other countries, but have long been extinct. See Helyot, Ord. Religieux, 1:373.