A Brief History of The C.M.S.F

The congregation of the Missionary Brothers of St. Francis of Assisi is an International of Society of Religious Brothers founded in 1901 in India by Very Rev.Bro.Paulus Moritz of Germany. It was canonically erected on 21st February 1901 by Bishop Crochet at Nagpur, India and was approved by the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide on 8th January 1921. It is a Religious Missionary Institute of Pontifical Rite under the Sacred Congregation for the Evangelization of people. The Congregation follows the rule of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis of Assisi

The first Mother House of the CMSF was erected at Khandwa. In 1908 the Brothers started their work at MT. Poinsur, Borivili West, in the Archdiocese of Bombay and from 1930, after the first General Chapter, the Mother House along with the Generalate were shifted to this place. The revised Constitutions were approved by the Holy See on the 29th June 1931 and again renewed and updated in 1985 during the Ninth General Chapter and approved by the Holy See

Owing to zeal, courage and determination of our Founder late Bro. Paulus Moritz and his successors in office, the Congregation has made rapid progress and founded many missions. They were mostly in the ecclesiastical units of Nagpur, Bombay, Daman, Krishnagar, Agra, Indore, Binajpur, Allahabad, Varanasi, Mysore, Jhansi, Ghorakpur, Lucknow, Mylapur, Madras, Delhi, Alappuzha, Cochin, Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Pondicherry, Thiruvalla, Kottar, Selam, Vijayapuram., Banglore, Shillong, Guwahati, Tura, Dhipu etc... Some of these missions which were well developed how been handed over to the dioceses which have turned them into parishes, while others like Krishnagar, Bhinajpur, Meerut and Khandwa have been formed into doiceses by Holy See. Today the Congregation is well established in India, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Paraguay, south Americca, Bolivia, America and Srilanka.