Biography
Yelizaveta Golitsyna was born 22 February 1797 in Saint Petersburg, Russia to the family of Prince Alexei Andreevich Golitsyn and Princess Alexandra Golitsyna. She was baptized and brought up in the Russian Orthodox Church. [1]
When she was 15, she learned that her mother and her aunt converted to Catholicism (the aunt, a revert to the faith, was the mother of future Catholic priest Demetrius Gallitzin). Outraged by this "betrayal," Golitsyna vowed never to change her religion, but over the next four years, her rejection of Catholicism was replaced by interest and desire to know more. Eventually, Yelizaveta also joined the Catholic Church. [1]
During one of her trips abroad, Golitsyna met Jesuit Father Rozaven, whom she asked to find for her a religious order devoted to education. Father Rozaven suggested the recently founded community, the "Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus", created by Madeleine Sophie Barat in order to spread education among Catholic women. Golitsyna took the veil in the city of Metz in 1826, and made her first vows in Rome in 1828. Her final vows were taken in Paris in 1832. [1]
Mother Barat highly valued the assistance of Golitsyna. After the General Council in 1839, Golitsyna was appointed Assistant General and sent to visit the American houses. She arrived in New York and promised Bishop Hughes that the Society of the Sacred Heart would open a house in New York. In May 1841, the first Religious arrived. [2] A school was opened at the corner of Houston and Mulberry streets, in Manhattan, then in Astoria, and finally at Manhattanville. During her stay in New York, Mother Gallitzin was a guest of the Parmentier family, noted New York philanthropists, at their Bridge Street mansion in Brooklyn. [3] In 1842 Mme. Gallitzin founded establishments in the Pottawattamie missions, and at McSherrystown, Maryland. [4]
Mother Elizabeth died of yellow fever, at the age of 47, on 26 November 1844 in New Orleans, Louisiana.
John Berchmans, SJ was a Jesuit scholastic and is revered as a saint in the Catholic Church.
The House of Golitsyn or Galitzine was a Russian princely family. Among them were boyars, warlords, diplomats, generals, admirals, stewards, chamberlains, and provincial landlords. By the 18th century, the family was divided into four major branches. One branch died out while the other three and their subdivisions contained about 1,100 members.
Prince Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin was an emigre Russian aristocrat and Catholic priest known as "The Apostle of the Alleghenies" and also in the United States as Prince Galitzin. He was a member of the House of Golitsyn.
Madeleine Sophie Barat, RSCJ,, was a French saint of the Catholic Church who founded the Society of the Sacred Heart, a worldwide religious institute of educators.
The Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, abbreviated RSCJ, is a Catholic centralized religious institute of consecrated life of Pontifical Right for women established in France by Madeleine Sophie Barat in 1800.
Princess Adelheid Amalie Gallitzin was a German salonist. She was the daughter of the Prussian Field Marshal Count Samuel von Schmettau and the mother of Prince Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin.
Mater Admirabilis is a fresco depicting the Virgin Mary, in the monastery of the Trinità dei Monti, in Rome. It was painted in 1844 by a young French artist, Pauline Perdrau, and has been associated with several miracles. October 20 is the Feast of Mater Admirabilis in the Roman Catholic Church, as observed by the Society of the Sacred Heart.
Mother Mary Aloysia Hardey, R.S.C.J., was an American religious sister of the Society of the Sacred Heart. She established all the convents of her order, up to the year 1883, in the eastern part of the United States as well as in Canada and Cuba.
The Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a Roman Catholic female religious congregation, founded in 1880 by Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini. Their aim is to spread devotion to the Sacred Heart by means of spiritual and corporal works of mercy. The sisters conduct homes for the aged and the sick, orphanages, industrial schools, sewing classes; they visit hospitals and prisons, and give religious instruction in their convents, which are open to women desirous of making retreats. The congregation operates in 15 countries on 6 continents, coordinated by its motherhouse in Rome.
Marie Joséphine Goetz was a French nun, the second superior-general of the Society of the Sacred Heart.
Yelizaveta Andreyevna Lavrovskaya was a Russian mezzo-soprano praised for her dramatic performances of operatic arias and her sensitive interpretations of lieder.
The Children of Mary of the Sacred Heart is a Catholic sodality founded by Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat in Lyons, France in 1823. It has also been referred to as the "Association of the Children of Mary," the "Congregation of the Children of Mary," the "Children of Mary Sodality," and by their French name, Enfants de Marie, often abbreviated E. de M. Although groups run currently in the United States and Canada, this page refers primarily to the history before 1900.
Rose Philippine Duchesne, RCSJ, was a French religious sister and educator whom Pope John Paul II canonized in 1988. She is the only fully canonized female Roman Catholic saint to share a feast day with the Dedication of Saints Peter and Paul on November 18th. A native of France, she immigrated as a missionary to America, and is recognized for her care and education of Indigenous American survivors of the United States Indian removal programs. Along with the founder, Madeleine-Sophie Barat, she was an early member of the Society of the Sacred Heart, and established the congregation's first communities in the United States. She spent the last half of her life teaching and serving the people of the Midwestern United States, which was at that time considered the western frontier of the nation.
Countess Varvara Nikolayevna GolovinanéePrincess Golitsyna was an artist and memoirist from Russian nobility, maid of honour of the Russian court, a close confidant of Empress Elizabeth, favorite Ivan Shuvalov's niece and Dame of Order of Saint Catherine (1816).
Countess Yekaterina Petrovna Rostopchina was a Russian aristocrat and writer. She was married to Fyodor Rostopchin, who served as governor of Moscow during the French Invasion of Russia.
Princess Alexandra Petrovna Golitsyna (1774–1842) was a maid of honour and historian of the Russian noble Protasov family. Sister to Moscow aristocrat and writer Catherine Rostopchin and maid of honour and dame of the Order of Saint Catherine Vera Vasilchikova, she was the mother of five, including Peter Gallitzin. The Roman Catholic missionary, Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin published her writing posthumously.
Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Golitsyn was a Russian prince, a member of the Patriotic War and foreign campaigns, and a Catholic convert from Russian Orthodoxy.
Princess Ana Gruzinskaya Golitsyna was a Russian aristocrat of Georgian royal origin.
Events from the year 1797 in Russia
Louise-Thérèse de Montaignac de Chauvance was a French Roman Catholic who founded the pious union of the Oblates of the Sacred Heart in 1874. She was known for her staunch devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the members of the union ought to renew the society "by their example and their holy lives". De Montaignac de Chauvance's life witnessed her catering to catechetical formation and promoting the Sacred Heart in France. She was beatified on 4 November 1990.
