Skip to content

We ask you, humbly: don't scroll away.

Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! It's a little awkward to ask, but we need your help. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. We're not salespeople, but we depend on donations averaging $14.76 and fewer than 1% of readers give. If you donate just $5.00, the price of your coffee, Catholic Online School could keep thriving. Thank you.

Help Now >

Edward Ambrose Burgis

Free World Class Education
FREE Catholic Classes

A Dominican historian and theologian, b. in England c. 1673; d. in Brussels, 27 April, 1747. When a young man he left the Church of England, of which his father was a minister, and became a Catholic, joining the Dominican Order at Rome, where he passed his noviceship in the convent of Sts. John and Paul on the Coelian Hill, then occupied by the English Dominicans. After his religious profession (1696) he was sent to Naples to the Dominican school of St. Thomas, where he displayed unusual mental ability. Upon the completion of his studies he was sent to Louvain, where for nearly thirty years he taught philosophy, theology, Sacred Scripture , and church history in the College of St. Thomas, established in 1697 for the Dominicans of England through the bequest of Cardinal Thomas Howard, O.P. He was the rector of the college from 1715 to 1720 and again from 1724 to 1730. In the latter year he was elected to the office of provincial; in 1741 he became Prior of the English Dominican convent at Bornhem, and in 1746 he was appointed Vicar-General of the English Dominicans in Belgium. He published a number of pamphlets of considerable merit containing theses written in Latin on Scriptural, theological, and historical subjects. But it was as a writer of English that he excelled, especially along historical lines; his style is easy and pleasing, and he is accurate in his statements. In 1712 he published in London "The Annals of the Church ", a volume embracing the period from A.D. 34 to 300. As stated in the preface it was his intention to bring the annals down to his own time in a work of nine volumes, but he abandoned this plan, rewrote the first period and published "The Annals of the Church from the Death of Christ", in five octavo volumes (London, 1738), the first work of the kind written in English by Catholic or Protestant. The book entitles "An Introduction to the Catholic Faith ", by Father Thomas Worthington, O.P. (London, 1709), was completed by Father Burgis, although his name does not appear in connection with it.

We ask you, humbly: don't scroll away.

Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! It's a little awkward to ask, but we need your help. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. We're not salespeople, but we depend on donations averaging $14.76 and fewer than 1% of readers give. If you donate just $5.00, the price of your coffee, Catholic Online School could keep thriving. Thank you.

Help Now >

Join the Movement
When you sign up below, you don't just join an email list - you're joining an entire movement for Free world class Catholic education.

Prayer of the Day logo
Saint of the Day logo

We ask you, humbly: don't scroll away.

Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! It's a little awkward to ask, but we need your help. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. We're not salespeople, but we depend on donations averaging $14.76 and fewer than 1% of readers give. If you donate just $5.00, the price of your coffee, Catholic Online School could keep thriving. Thank you.

Help Now >

Catholic Online Logo

Copyright 2024 Catholic Online. All materials contained on this site, whether written, audible or visual are the exclusive property of Catholic Online and are protected under U.S. and International copyright laws, © Copyright 2024 Catholic Online. Any unauthorized use, without prior written consent of Catholic Online is strictly forbidden and prohibited.

Catholic Online is a Project of Your Catholic Voice Foundation, a Not-for-Profit Corporation. Your Catholic Voice Foundation has been granted a recognition of tax exemption under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Federal Tax Identification Number: 81-0596847. Your gift is tax-deductible as allowed by law.