Felix of Valois

Felix of Valois, OSsT (; (April 16, 1127 – November 4, 1212) was a French Catholic former Cistercian hermit and a co-founder (with John of Matha) of the Trinitarian Order.

Life Butler says that Felix was born in 1127. He was surnamed Valois because he was a native of the province of Valois. Tradition holds that he renounced his possessions and retired to a dense forest in the Diocese of Meaux, where he gave himself to prayer and contemplation.

John of Matha, a young nobleman, a native of Provence, and doctor of divinity, who was later ordained priest, having heard of the holy hermit of Cerfroid, sought him out, and put himself under his direction. Felix, though seventy years of age, readily agreed.

The Trinitarians

Felix and John set out for Rome in the depth of winter and arrived there in January 1198, the beginning of the pontificate of Innocent III. They had letters of recommendation from the Bishop of Paris, and the new pope received them with kindness and lodged them in his palace. Though little in favor of new orders, Innocent III granted approval to this enterprise in a Bull of 17 December 1198, under the named of the Order of the Holy Trinity for the Redemption of Captives. Innocent appointed John of Matha superior-general and commissioned the Bishop of Paris and the Abbot of Saint Victor to draw up for the institute a rule, which he subsequently confirmed. In 1679 Felix's feast was transferred to November 20 by Pope Innocent XI, where it was placed in the General Roman Calendar because, since 1613, November 4 was the feast day of Charles Borromeo In 1969, his feast was restored to November 4, his dies natalis.

Legacy Saint-Felix-de-Valois is a village in the province of Quebec. St. Felix de Valois Parish is located in Bankstown, Australia. St. Felix Church in Clifton Springs, New York is named after him. It is now part of Saint Peter's Roman Catholic Parish in the Diocese of Rochester, New York. The current church building was built in 1895 and the name of the parish was changed at that time from St. Agnes to St. Felix by the pastor Felix O'Hanlon.