ORDER OF ST. AUGUSTINE AND IT’S MISSION

Order of St. Augustine is a world wide Catholic Religious Organization that has its origin in St. Augustine (354-430 AD) and orientates its life in search for God by living in Community life in oneness of mind and heart based on the teachings and spirituality of St. Augustine. The Order of Saint Augustine was founded in 1244 in Italy when several communities of hermits living in the region of Tuscany came together to ask Pope Innocent IV that they be united under one common Rule of life and one Superior General like other Orders that had recently been founded. The Pope gave them the Rule of Saint Augustine and asked representatives of each of their houses, gathered in chapter, to elect a Prior General who would be the sign and principal promoter of their desired unity. Not many years later, as the number of friars grew and the Order became more geographically extensive, other similar groups of hermits, scattered mostly throughout central Italy, were united to them, forming in 1256 what has come to be known as the Grand Union of the Order. The strong eremitical emphasis which characterized the early groups gradually began to give way to a mixed life of contemplation and pastoral ministry as the Church called the Order to form part of the Mendicant Movement and engage in the work of evangelization.

Within a century of the Grand Union there were already 8,000 friars established in many countries, involved in a variety of works, as pastors, preachers, educators, scholars, theologians and missionaries – all for the proclamation of the Gospel, - as well as others engaged as carpenters, farmers, beggars and bakers, for the internal needs of the communities. All of them professed one and the same way of life according to the ideals and values upon which Saint Augustine had ordered his vision of religious community. Early in our history groups of women religious were aggregated to the Order as well, and many lay men and women shared the Order’s spirituality and liturgical customs as members of Augustinian lay fraternities. 

During periods of great missionary effort in the Church, Augustinians were counted among other religious of various Orders and Congregations who ventured into foreign lands to extend the message of the Gospel and to lay the foundations for religious life. They ventured throughout Europe, as well as to North and South America, Africa, Japan, Persia, India, and China. Augustinians were among the founding fathers of the first university of the New World, and were the first evangelizers of the Philippine Islands.

 From May 2019 onwards St John's Residential School Kollam came under the ownership and management of the Augustinian Fathers, an ancient Religious Order in the Holy Catholic Church.