The new congregation was placed under simple vows, the aims proposed being the defence of the Faith, the education of youth, and the giving of missions. A house of studies was erected at Malestroit, near Ploërmel, and placed under the direction of Fathers Blanc and Rohrbacher, while Lamennais remained at La Chênaie, with the younger members, writing for them his "Guide de la jeunesse", and for others more advanced the "Journée du chrétien". Lamennais's project of forming a body of priests thoroughly equipped for pressing needs in the Church of France, a scheme which he outlined in 1825 in a letter to M. de Salinis, seemed well on the way towards fulfilment. A vivid picture of the rule of life and the spirit of La Chênaie is to be found in the letters of Maurice de Guerin, whose companions were such men as Olympe-Philippe Gerbet, Prosper Guéranger, Jean-Joseph Gaume, Bruno Dominique de Scorbiac, and Charles Sainte-Foi. The condemnation of L'Avenir disturbed only temporarily the activity of La Chénaie. On the final defection of Félicité, however, the Bishop of Rennes transferred to Jean-Marie the superiorship of the congregation, the members of which left La Chênaie for Malestroit, laymen being now excluded. The congregation, reorganized, gained a new lease of life in 1837 and by 1861 had 200 members in nine houses, under the mother-house at Rennes. Servites of the Immaculate Conception The priests of the Immaculate Conception got charge of three congregations at Constantinople, one at Feri-kuei, for Georgians and Armenians, another for the Latins at Scutari, and a third for Georgian Greek Catholics at Pera. Candidates for the priesthood were ordained in Saratov by the Bishop of Tiraspol, who was the ecclesiastical superior of the Catholic Church in Georgia; for a time they filled parish duties as secular priests, after which they were appointed by the congregation to a post where they might minister to their countrymen. The Sister Servites of the Immaculate Conception conduct two primary schools, to which children are admitted, without distinction of creed. According to Father Christopher Zugger, nine Servite missionaries from Constantinople, headed by Exarch Shio Batmanishvili, came to the Democratic Republic of Georgia to permanently establish the Byzantine Rite in Old Georgian there, and by 1929 their faithful had grown to 8,000. Tragically, their mission came to an end with the arrests of Exarch Shio and his priests by the Soviet secret police in