Order of Preachers

The Order of Preachers, commonly known as the Dominican Order, is a Catholic mendicant order of pontifical right that was founded in France by the Castilian priest Dominic de Guzmán. It was approved by Pope Honorius III via the papal bull Religiosam vitam on 22 December 1216. Members of the order, who are referred to as Dominicans, generally display the letters OP after their names, standing for Ordo Praedicatorum, meaning of "the Order of Preachers". Membership in the order includes friars, nuns, active sisters, and lay or secular Dominicans, formerly known as tertiaries. More recently, there have been a growing number of associates of the religious sisters who are unrelated to the tertiaries.