The Trinitarian Family
The Trinitarian Family is wider than the male Order. It gathers priests and brothers, contemplative nuns and hermitesses, sister congregations, the lay Third Order, the Oblates, and the confraternities that grew up around the Order.
The Order of the Most Holy Trinity and of the Captives is the male religious institute of priests and brothers. The Trinitarian Family is the wider ecclesial community that bears the name of the Trinity and acknowledges St. John de Matha as its common father. Its members share the same charism and continue the same mission: the glory of the Trinity and the redemption of the captives of our time.
The distinction matters. A nun, a sister, or a lay Trinitarian is not a member of the male Order, but all belong to the family. The common sign is the cross of red and blue.
In the traditional language of the family, the friars are the First Order, the contemplative nuns the Second Order, and the lay tertiaries the Third Order. The other branches are distinct institutes or associations, not additional orders.
The first Trinitarian nuns were closely linked to the Order’s origins. According to the tradition preserved by the Order, they included Constance and Sancha, daughters of King Peter II of Aragon, who consecrated themselves to the Most Holy Trinity. Their first monastery was Our Lady of the Angels in the diocese of Lleida.
Trinitarian nuns live a cloistered, wholly contemplative life. Their redemptive mission is carried out in silence, prayer, and penance, in communion with the friars and the whole family. Today they have monasteries in Spain, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Madagascar.
The Hermitesses of the Most Holy Trinity were founded in Guayaquil, Ecuador, in 1988. They live a wholly contemplative life inspired by the first Trinitarian community at Cerfroid, with a ministry of ecumenical welcome and mercy.
The Trinitarian sister congregations are distinct institutes, usually of diocesan or pontifical right, aggregated to the Order. They share its charism and adapt it to education, health care, missions, and social work.
Founded by Jeanne Adrian and companions, the congregation cared for poor girls, the sick, and redeemed captives returning from Africa. It now serves in education, health care, missions, and parish work in Europe, Africa, Madagascar, Korea, Canada, Latin America, and India.
Founded by Mother Maria Teresa Cucchiari of the Most Holy Trinity, the congregation is dedicated to the glory of the Trinity, education, missions, parish work, and care of the needy. It serves in Italy, the United States, Madagascar, and the Philippines.
Founded by Rosa Cunat and companions, the congregation adopted the Rule of the Trinitarian Sisters of Rome and was aggregated to the Order in 1882. It serves in education, care of the poor, and missions in Spain, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Bolivia, Austria, and Madagascar.
Founded by Venerable Francisco de Asís Méndez Casariego and Servant of God Mariana Allsopp, the institute cares for young women at risk through family homes, shelters, prisons, reception centres, and professional schools. It serves in Spain, Argentina, Mexico, Uruguay, and Rome.
Founded by the Trinitarian Fr. Miguel Ferrer, the congregation is dedicated to a special consecration to the Trinity, prayer, work, and works of mercy. It serves in education, care of the sick, and poor parishes in Spain, Peru, and Bolivia.
Founded by Mother Isabel Rita Moreno of the Most Holy Trinity under the guidance of the Trinitarian Fr. José Chacón, the Beaterio of the Most Holy Trinity cares for poor, orphaned, and abandoned children. It is of diocesan right and affiliated to the Order.
The U.S. Province also links to the Sisters of the Most Holy Trinity in Euclid, Ohio, and to other Trinitarian communities.
Lay people have belonged to the Trinitarian family from its beginnings. The 1198 Rule already provides for the instruction of seculars, and thirteenth-century documents refer to confratres, donati, and confraternities aggregated to the Order. Two forms of lay association grew out of that history: the Third Order and the confraternities. They are related but not the same.
The Third Order is the lay order aggregated to the Trinitarian Order. Its members, often called tertiaries, are not members of the male Order. After a period of formation, normally including a novitiate, they are admitted to the Order’s habit and scapular and make a promise to live the Trinitarian charism in the world. Modern tertiaries are guided by The Trinitarian Way, the rule of life approved by the Holy See in 2000.
The Order’s account dates the first known statutes of the Third Order to 1584; some historians place them in 1670. Today the Third Order is organized in local groups, with a national office in the United States and groups in Latin America and elsewhere.
The Oblates of the Most Holy Trinity are a secular institute founded in Rome in 1960 at San Tommaso in Formis. They are not a third order or a confraternity. Members live their consecration in the world, witnessing to the Trinity and working for the sanctification of priests, consecrated persons, and families. They have members in Italy and Madagascar.
They are a distinct institute of consecrated life, not a subdivision of the Third Order. In the sequence of this page they come after the Third Order and before the confraternities because they are a recognized form of consecrated life in the world, while the confraternities were devotional associations.
The confraternities were associations of the faithful aggregated to the Order, not a third order. Their entry rite was simpler. A priest with faculty from the Order received the member and invested him or her with the small white scapular bearing the red and blue cross. There was no novitiate and no promise. Members shared in the Order’s prayers and indulgences and supported its work of ransoming captives.
The Trinitarian scapular later became one of the five scapulars worn together in the fivefold scapular, so it is widely worn by people with no other link to the Order. Wearing the scapular, or receiving it as part of the fivefold scapular, is a devotional act. It does not make someone a tertiary.
The confraternities flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They declined with the suppressions and confiscations of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The 1983 Code of Canon Law no longer treats “confraternity” as a separate canonical category; such bodies are now associations of the Christian faithful. The Order’s current account of the Trinitarian Family does not list a separate confraternity branch. The Third Order is the canonical lay order today. In Spain many local confraternities survived as penitential hermandades. About twenty-five are grouped in the Confraternity of Trinitarian Hermandades and Confraternities “Espíritu Santo,” which holds regular national meetings.
Enrollment by a priest with faculty, with the small scapular as the badge. No novitiate and no promise. Members shared in the Order’s prayers and indulgences and supported the ransom work. The old universal confraternity is no longer a separate branch; local hermandades survive in Spain.
Formation and novitiate, then a promise to live the Trinitarian charism in the world. Tertiaries are admitted to the Order’s habit and scapular. The Third Order is the Order’s canonical lay order today.
Items marked Secondary are academic or reference works, not official publications of the Order. Official texts are normative where they differ.
