opposed its influence in Portuguese society. The secularisation of the Republic constituted one of the main actions to be taken in the political agenda of the Portuguese Republican Party and the Freemasonry. Monarchists in a last-ditch effort sought to outflank the republicans by enacting anticlerical measures of their own, even enacting a severe restriction on the Jesuits on the day before the revolution. Soon after the establishment of the Republic, on 8 October 1910, Minister for Justice Afonso Costa reinstated Marquess of Pombal's laws against the Jesuits, and Joaquim António de Aguiar's laws in relation to religious orders. The Church's property and assets were expropriated by the State. The religious oath and other religious elements found in the statutes of the University of Coimbra were abolished, and matriculations into first year of the Theology Faculty were cancelled, as were places in the Canon law course, suppressing the teaching of Christian doctrine. Religious holidays turned into working days, keeping however the Sunday as a resting day for labour reasons. As well as that, the Armed forces were forbidden from participating in religious solemn events. Divorce and family laws were approved which considered marriage as a "purely civil contract" Bishops were persecuted, expelled or suspended from their activities in the course of the secularisation. All but one were driven from their dioceses. the property of clerics was seized by the state, wearing of the cassock was banned, all minor seminaries were closed and all but five major seminaries. A law of 22 February 1918 permitted only two seminaries in the country, but they had not been given their property back. Religious orders were expelled from the country, including 31 orders comprising members in 164 houses (in 1917 some orders were permitted to form again). Religious education was prohibited in both primary and secondary school. In response to the several anticlerical decrees, Portuguese bishops launched a collective pastoral defending the Church's doctrine, but its reading was prohibited by the government. In spite of this, some prelates continued to publicise the text, among which was the bishop of Porto, António Barroso. This resulted in him being called to Lisbon by Afonso Costa, where he was stripped from his ecclesiastic functions. The secularisation peaked with the Law of Separation of the State and the Church on 20 April 1911, with a large acceptance by the revolutionaries. The law was only promulgated by the Assembly in