Editing Servite Order (section)

===Centuries of growth===
[[Image:Santa Maria dei Servi (Padua) - Altare dell'Addolorata - San Filippo Benizi.jpg|thumb|left|200px|[[Philip Benizi de Damiani]] (1233-1285)]]
[[Philip Benizi]] was elected general on 5 June 1267, and afterwards became the great propagator of the order.<ref name=servants/> The [[Second Council of Lyons]] in 1274 put into execution the ordinance of the 1215 [[Fourth Lateran Council]], forbidding the foundation of new [[religious orders]], and suppressed all mendicant institutions not yet approved by the [[Holy See]]. In the year 1276 [[Pope Innocent V]] in a letter to Benizi declared the order suppressed. Benizi set off for Rome to appeal the decision, but before his arrival there Innocent V had died. His successor lived only five weeks. Finally [[Pope John XXI]], decided that the Servite Order should continue as before. It was not definitively approved until [[Pope Benedict XI]] issued the [[Papal bull|bull]] "Dum levamus" on 11 February 1304. Of the seven founders, Alexis alone lived to see their foundation raised to the permanent dignity of an order. He died in 1310.

On 30 January 1398 [[Pope Boniface IX]] granted the Servites the power to confer theological degrees. It was in harmony with the tradition thus established that many centuries later the order established the [[Marianum]] faculty in Rome.<ref name="marianum">{{cite web|url=http://www.servidimaria.org/en/attualita/promotori2/promotori2.htm#THE_MARIANUM_PONTIFICAL_THEOLOGICAL_FACULTY |title=The Marianum Pontifical Theological Faculty |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090124183546/http://www.servidimaria.org/en/attualita/promotori2/promotori2.htm |archive-date=24 January 2009}}</ref>

[[File:2709 - Innsbruck - Servitenkirche.JPG|thumb|200px|Servite church in [[Innsbruck]], [[Austria]]]]
The new foundation enjoyed considerable growth in the following decades. Already in the thirteenth century there were houses of the order in [[Germany]], [[France]], and [[Spain]]. By the early years of the fourteenth century the order had more than one hundred houses in locations including [[Hungary]], [[Bohemia]], [[Austria]], [[Poland]], and what later became [[Belgium]]. In subsequent periods came missions in [[Crete]], the [[Philippines]] (St. Peregrine-Philippine Vicariate), and [[India]].<ref name="servants"/>