Suore di Santa Marta in Ventimiglia, Italy
The Sisters of Santa Marta are a female religious institute of pontifical right: the members of this congregation postpone the initials C.S.S.M. to their name.
The congregation was founded in Ventimiglia on October 15, 1878 by Bishop Tommaso Reggio (1818-1901).
Wishing to entrust the kitchen and wardrobe of the seminary and bishop’s boarding school to a community of religious, Reggio gathered some girls from her diocese, prepared regulations for them and placed them under the patronage of Santa Marta, Hospita Christi, a symbol of active life: the first eight aspirants received the religious habit on 8 September 1880 and the following year the first religious profession of vows took place.
After the transfer of Reggio from Ventimiglia to Genoa (1892) the congregation opened a branch in Chiavari, but when the city was removed from the jurisdiction of the Genoese archbishop and was erected into a diocese (1895), since the nuns depended on the local ordinaries, the congregation split into two autonomous branches (December 6, 1895): the two branches met in 1972.
The institute obtained the pontifical decree of praise on May 13, 1928 and its constitutions were definitively approved by the Holy See on May 21, 1935.
The founder was beatified by Pope John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square in Rome on September 3, 2000.