Edmundites
The Society of Saint Edmund, also known as the Edmundites, is a Catholic religious group for men founded in 1843 in Pontigny, France by Father Jean Baptiste Muard. They are named after Saint Edmund of Canterbury and use the post-nominal S.S.E. Their work includes carrying out missions, parish service, educating young people in seminaries and colleges, guiding religious associations, and doing foreign missions.
In 1889, due to anti-clerical laws in France, the Edmundites moved to the United States and settled in Winooski, Vermont, where they founded Saint Michael’s College in 1904. The original home was Pontigny, but the superior general later moved to Hitchin, England; they left Hitchin in 1925 because of money problems and handed the school and parish there to another religious order. In the United States, they ran a missionary house and an apostolic school in Swanton, Vermont, and Saint Michael’s College in Colchester, which grew to about 2,000 undergraduates and 650 graduate students.
In 1937, the Edmundites began missions to African Americans in Alabama and supported the voting rights movement in Selma during the Civil Rights era. In 1953, Alys VanGilder Enders donated 11 acres of Enders Island in Connecticut to them, where they run a retreat center and an art school. In 2022, they announced that they would complete their organization and no longer accept new members.
Today the Edmundites are headquartered in Colchester, Vermont. They had about 22 members in 2020 (18 priests). Their motto is “Do the best we can, with what little we have, to serve those most in need,” and the current Superior General is Rev. Fr. David Cray, SSE.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 11:16 (CET).