The Alexians officially named as the Congregation of Alexian Brothers (Latin: Congregatio Fratrum Cellitarum seu Alexianorum) abbreviated C.F.A., is a Catholic lay religious congregation of Pontifical Right for men specifically devoted to caring for the sick which has its origin in Europe at the time of the Black Death. They follow the Augustinian rule. The Alexians trace their origin to the early 12th-century Beghards, male counterparts of the Beguines, laywomen who followed a devout style of life in a limited degree of common life. The men did not get much attention until they made a great contribution to history in the city of Mechelen, in the Duchy of Brabant (in central Flanders, now Belgium), some time in the 14th century, during the terrible ravages of the Black Death. Some laymen united under the guidance of a man named Tobias to succor the plague-stricken without taking any vows or adopting monasticism. One of their most obvious activities was caring for those stricken with the bubonic plague, along with their families, and burying those who died. These laymen lived in little rooms or cells (from Latin "cella," a cell that gave rise to their early name of "Cellites"). More information...
According to PR-model, alexianbrothers.org is ranked 1,020,763rd in multilingual Wikipedia, in particular this website is ranked 739,328th in English Wikipedia.
The website is placed before jokijarvi.com and after swedishmatch.se in the BestRef global ranking of the most important sources of Wikipedia.
