Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/726

 RAPIN

648

RASKOLNIKS

night shortly before soldiers came to seize him. He sought refuge on a remote island in an Irish lake and, during a year's concealment there, wrote for pubhca- tion the Irish sermons which he had been accustomed to deliver to his flock, and which, when printed in 1736, became a powerful reminder of the duties of a Christian life throughout the western half of Ireland at a time of fierce aggression on the Faith. A marked man, he could not show himself again in Raphoe, and he was transferred to Kildare in 1737, where he found it needful to make a secluded spot in the Bog of Allen the centre of his apostolic labours.

Driven out at the Reformation, a Catholic bishop has never since resided at Raphoe. Even before the flight of the earls from RathmuUen (1(307) Donald MacCongail, a remarkable prelate, who was present at the Council of Trent in 1563 and at the Ulster pro\-incial council in 1587, seems to have resided most of his time at Killybegs on ground now occupied by structures connected with St. Columba's Marine Industrial School. A remnant of the ancient cathe- dral church of Raphoe still shows in the chancel of the Protestant cathedral there; but no ruin marks the site of the ancient monastery. It is different with the foundations at Gartan, Glencolumbkille and Kilmacrenan, associated with Columba. More strik- ing to the eye are the remains of the remarkable abbeys founded during the Middle Ages in the Diocese of Raphoe. The Cistercians were at As- saroe, near Ballyshannon, the Carmelites at Rath- muUen, the Franciscans in almost every district of Tirconail. The most celebrated of these foundations was the Franciscan Abbej- of Donegal under whose shelter, after it was dismantled, the "Annals of the Kingdoms of Ireland" were compiled by the Four Masters (1632-1636). After the plantation of Ulster in the seventeenth century not an acre of good land remained in the hands of a Catholic in Tirconill. To this day some of its confiscated abbey lands yield an annual income of close on £9000 sterling to Trinity College, DubUn.

Dr. Patrick McGettigan (1820-1861) brought the Loreto Sisters into the Diocese of Raphoe (1854); Dr. Daniel McGettigan (1861-1871), afterwards Primate of all Ireland, introduced the Sisters of Mercy (1867), and Dr. James McDevitt (1871-1879) established the Raphoe Diocesan Society (1872); the Presentation Brothers came to Letterkcnny in 1894. The year 1901 is an important date in the his- tory of Raphoe; it was then that the ancient cathe- dral chapter was re-established by Leo XIII and St. Columba declared joint patron with St. Eunan of the diocese and of the new cathedral. In that year also the new cathedral, which together with the bishop's residence is at Letterkenny, was solemnly dedicated. Cardinal Logue, a native and former bishop (1S79- 1887) of Raphoe, presided, and Archbishop Keane of Dubuque, also a native, preached the dedication sermon. St. Eunan's (Adamnan's) College was begun at Letterkenny on 23 September, 1904, the twelfth centenary of St. Adamnan, and opened in 1906. There are many pilgrimages in Raphoe, the most fre- quented being Doon Well, Inniskeel, St. Catherine's Well, and Glencolumbkille.

St. .\damnan. Life of Columba, ed. Reeves (Dublin, 18.57); O'DoNOVAN (ed.), Annals of the Four Masters (Dublin. 183G) ; O'CleRT. Life of Red Hugh O'DonneU, ed. McRPHT (Dublin, 1893); Maquire. Cuimhne Coluimcille (Dublin, 1908); Bi'hke (ed.). Sermons of the Most Rev. Dr. James O'Gallagher (Dublin, 1887) • Meehan. The Rise and Fall of the Irish Franciscan Mona.l- teries (Dublin, 1872); Archdale, Monasticon Hibernicum, ed. MoRAN (Dublin. 187.3).

Patrick O'Donnell.

Rapin, REN-fi, French Jesuit, b. at Tours, 1621; d. in Paris, 1687. He entered the Society in 1639, taught rhetoric, and wrote extensively both in verse and prose. His first production, "Ecloga? Sacra>" (Paris, 1659), won hini the title of the Second The-

ocritus, and his poem on gardens, "Hortorum libri IV" (Paris, 1665), twice translated into English (London, 1673; Cambridge, 1706), placed him among the foremost Latin versifiers. Of his critical essays, the best known are: "Observations sur les poemes d'Horace et de Virgile" (Paris, 1669); "R^ flexions sur I'usage de I'^loquence de ce temps" (Paris, 1672); "Reflexions sur la po^tique d'Aristote et sur les ouvrages des poetes anciens et modemes" (Paris, 1676). He is also the author of several theological and ascetic treatises like "De nova doc- trina dissertatio sen Evangelium Jansenistarum" (Paris, 1656); "L'esprit du christianisme " (Paris, 1672); "La perfection du christianisme" (Paris, 1673); "La foi des derniers siecles" (Paris, 1679). These books and many other pamphlets were col- lected in "QDuvres completes" published at Amster- dam, 1709-10. Rapin's best titles to celebrity are his two posthumous works: "Histoire du jansenisme", edited by Domenech (Paris, 1861), and "Memoires sur I'eglise, la society, la cour, la ville et le jan- s6nisme", edited by Aubineau (Paris, 1865). The latter book is the counterpart of the Jansenistic "Memoires de Godefroi Hermant sur I'histoire ecclesiastique du XVII' siecle", edited by Gazier (Paris, 1905). Ste-Beuve in liis "Port Royal" tries on every occasion to find Rapin at fault, but recent studies on Jansenism show that he is, in the main, reliable.

Dejol, De Renalo Rapino (Paris, 1881); Aubineau, Le P. Rapin el ses memoires inedils in Rerue du monde catholique (Paris, 1864); Hurter. Nomenclator II (Innsbruck, 1892), 447; Som- MERVOGEL, Bibliothhque de la Compagnie de Jesus (Paris, 1895), VI. 1443; Ste-Beuve, Port Royal, VII (Paris, 1900). index. J. F. SOLUER.

Rapolla. See Melfi and Rapolla, Diocese op.

Raskolniks (Russian raskolnik, a schismatic, a dissenter; from rasA'oi, schism, splitting; that in turn from raz, apart, and kolot', to split; plural, raskolniki), a generic term for dissidents from the Established Church in Russia. Under the name Ra^kolniki, the various offshoots and schismatic bodies originating from the Greek Orthodox Church of the Russian Empire have been grouped by Russian historians and ecclesiastical writers. Strictly speaking, the name Raskolniki refers merely to those who have kept the outward forms of the Byzantine Rite; the others who have deserted its ritual as well as its teachings are grouped under the general Russian name of Sek- tansUm (sectarianism). In the present article they are both treated together, since either form of dissent is but slightly known outside of Russia. The Ras- kolniks represent in the Russian Church somewhat the antithesis of Protestantism towards the Cathohc Church. Protestants left the Church because they claimed a desire to reform it by dropping dogmas, beliefs, and rites; the R;iskolniks left the Russian Church because they desired to keep alive the minutest rites and practices to which they were accustomed, and objected to the Russian Church reforming them in any respect. In doing so they fell into the greatest of inconsistencies, and a section of them, while keeping up the minutiffi of ritual, rejected nearly every doc- trine the Church taught throughout the world.

I. True Raskolniks. — Even from the time that the Russians were converted to Christianity there were various dissident sects among them, reproducing in some respects the almost forgotten heresies of the early ages of the Church. These are mere names to- day, but the main separation from the Russian Estab- lished Church came in 1654 when Nikon, Patriarch of Moscow, convened a synod at Moscow for the reform of the ritual and correction of the church books. At the time the air in Southern Russia was filled with theideaof union with Rome, inCentral and Northern Russia there was the fear of the Polish invasion and the turning to Latin customs. When Nikon corrected