PETIT, LOUIS

Archbishop and orientalist; b. Vuizla-Chiésaz (Haute-Savoie), France, Feb. 21, 1868; d. Menton (Alpes-Maritimes), France, Nov. 5, 1927. After joining the assumptionists (1885) in Osma, Spain, where they had taken refuge from France, he made his perpetual profession at Livry near Paris (1887), studied at Rome, was ordained (1891), and then went to the East. From 1895, when he became superior of the scholasticate at Kadiköy (formerly Chalcedon), Turkey, he devoted himself to the religious past of Byzantium. In 1897 he founded the periodical Échos d'Orient, which he directed for the next decade, while contributing to other learned journals. As a member of the Russian Archeological Institute and the Greek literary Sylloguè of Constantinople, he explored mount athos with Jules Pargoire in 1901 and 1905, and published his findings, together with M. Millet, in Recueil des inscriptions chrétiennes de l'Athos (1904). Together with other scholars, he edited Les Chartes des monastères grecs (5 v. 1903–11). In collaboration with Jean B. Martin, he was editor for the reprinting and continuation of mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum collectio (60 v., 1899–1927). Petit was responsible for 12 of the additional volumes, including five on Vatican Council I. He went to Rome in 1908 and acted as adviser to the Armenian Catholic bishops who met there in council (1911). When he became Latin archbishop of Athens and apostolic delegate to Greece (1912), he continued his scholarly labors and won recognition from even the most rigid Orthodox. He was instrumental in the foundation of the Pontifical Oriental Institute (1917) and of the Roman Congregation for the Oriental Church, for which he acted as consultor. In 1926 he resigned the archbishopric of Athens, and became titular archbishop of Corinth. His Bibliographie des acolouthies grecques appeared in 1926. Petit contributed to the Dictionnaire de théologie catholique numerous articles concerning Greek ecclesiastical writers and a long, highly regarded article on Armenia.

Bibliography: s. salaville, Mgr. Louis Petit, Échos d'Orient 15 (1912) 97–105; 27 (1938) 129–137. Ibid. 137–144, bibliog. of P.'s works. j. rodrigo, "Necrologia," Religion y Cultura 1 (1928) 147–160. r. janin, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique 12.1:1345.

[j. daoust]