Duchesne, Louis Marie Olivier

Duchesne, Louis Marie Olivier

(lwē märē` ōlēvyā` düshĕn`), 1843–1922, French Roman Catholic ecclesiastic, educator, church historian, and archaeologist. He made a scientific expedition to Mt. Athos, Greece, and to Asia Minor (1874–76). His thesis, tude sur Liber pontificalis, earned (1877) him the professorship of church history at the Catholic Institute, Paris, which he held for eight years. He founded the Bulletin critique (1880), which presented his views on theology, history, and philology and edited and published an edition of Liber pontificalis (2 vol., 1886–92). Appointed to the directorship of the French school of archaeology at Rome, he there became president of the papal commission to deliberate revising the breviary (1902). Among his works are Christian Worship: Its Origin and Evolution (tr. 1903, 5th ed. 1949, repr. 1956), and Early History of the Christian Church (3 vol., tr. 1910–24, repr. 1957–60).