The CICM Missionaries, officially known as the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Latin: Congregatio Immaculati Cordis Mariae) and often abbreviated as C.I.C.M, is a Catholic clerical religious congregation of Pontifical Right for men established in 1862 by the Belgian Catholic priest Theophile Verbist (1823–1868).[5] Its members add the post-nominal letters C.I.C.M. to their names to indicate membership in the congregation.[citation needed]
The order's origins lie in Scheut, a suburb of Brussels, due to which it is widely known as the Scheut Missionaries.[citation needed] The congregation is most notable for their international missionary works in China, Mongolia, the Philippines, and in the Congo Free State/Belgian Congo (modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo).
Presently, their international name "CICM Missionaries" is preferred, although, in the United States, the congregation is mostly known as Missionhurst.[6]
The congregation was founded by Théophile Verbist, who was a diocesan priest in the Archdiocese of Mechelen-Brussels in the mid-19th century. He served as chaplain to the military academy in Brussels and at the same time as a national director of the Pontifical Association of the Holy Childhood. He would lead a group of other Belgian diocesan priests, who became deeply concerned with the abandoned children in China and with the millions in China which, at the time, suffered from widespread poverty. The congregation is named after a religious Marian devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and has sought to expand its missionary work in various countries abroad.[6]
With the Convention of Peking occurring, the CICM would begin establishing operations in the country in the early 1860s.[citation needed] In 1862, Verbist founded the Belgian Mission in China. Upon seeking ecclesiastical permission, however, they were commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro Barnabò to begin their work by founding a seminary in Belgium to supply priests for the beginning mission, laying the foundations of the Scheutveld College, 28 April 1863, in the Field of Scheut near Brussels. As a result, the C.I.C.M. missionaries were also known as Scheutists or Scheut missionaries.[citation needed]
In September 1863, the first group of missionaries set forth for Inner Mongolia.[citation needed] In the winter of 1865, Verbist and his four companions arrived in inner Mongolia, which was entrusted to the fledgling congregation by Rome, and immediately began organizing small Christian communities. Three years later, on 23 February 1868, Verbist died of typhoid fever at the age of 44 in Lao-Hu-Kou.
The Scheutveld priests and brothers would face dangers such as the Boxer Rebellion in China, the climate of the nations in which missions were conducted, and persecution of the missionaries and their local congregations.[citation needed]
After World War I, Belgium lay devastated, leading the Missionary Fathers of Scheut to establish a center in a safe location from which they could send out their missionaries.[citation needed] As many Belgian refugees at that time were living in London, it was thought that a church in that city would serve the spiritual needs of the Belgian community of London and also become a base for the Order's missionary activities. In 1922, the Church of Our Lady of Hal was established in a hut on Arlington Road in Camden Town while a permanent church was built opposite this site in 1933.[7][8]
During World War II, Father Jozef Raskin,who was a missionary to Inner Mongolia from 1920 to 1934, was made a chaplain in the Belgian army and was a personal advisor to King Leopold III.[citation needed] While he was operating under the code name Leopold Vindictive 200 for the Dutch resistance in 1942, he was captured by the Gestapo and sentenced to death by beheading on 18 October 1943.[citation needed]
The congregation would grow in the following years, eventually growing to have a worldwide presence.[citation needed] Originally a Belgian Foundation, CICM has grown into an international religious missionary congregation of men from different races, colors and nationalities.
In connection with their missions, the Fathers opened a number of institutions, such the hospital at St-Trudon, Upper Kassai, for those afflicted with sleeping sickness.[citation needed]
Today, 780 CICM priests and lay brothers are present in Asian countries (e.g. Mongolia, Indonesia, and Japan), Africa, the Americas, and in Europe.[citation needed]
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