the convent of San Salvatore in Heraklion. At the period of its greatest prosperity the order comprised 42 ecclesiastical provinces and 2 vicariates numbering 2000 monasteries and about 30,000 members. The Augustinian Friars were brought to Ciechanów (Poland) in 1358 by Duke Siemowit III. They experienced the most turbulent times during the Reformation. From the 17th century, the Augustinians' pastoral presence was growing in the towns. The monastery – characterised by mild observance – was usually inhabited by 4 to 7 monks. It ceased to exist in 1864 when monasteries were dissolved. Many European Augustinian priories and foundations suffered serious setbacks (including suppression and destruction) from the various periods of anti-clericalism during the Reformation and other historical events. After the First World War, economic conditions were such in Germany that friars were sent to North America to teach. After 1936, with the political situation in Nazi Germany worsening, more German Augustinians departed for North America, where a separate German province had been established. Privileges of the order Alexander IV freed the order from the jurisdiction of the bishops; Pope Pius V placed the Augustinians among the mendicant orders and ranked them fourth after the Carmelites. Since the end of the 13th century the sacristan of the Papal Palace was always to be an Augustinian friar. This privilege was ratified by Pope Alexander VI and granted to the Order forever by a bull issued in 1497. The holder of the office was Rector of the Vatican parish (of which the chapel of St. Paul is the parish church). To his office also belonged the duty of preserving in his oratory a consecrated Host, which had to be renewed weekly and kept in readiness in case of the pope's illness, when it was the privilege of the papal sacristan to administer the last sacraments to the pope. The sacristan had always to accompany the pope when he traveled, and during a conclave it was he who celebrated Mass and administered the sacraments. , Augustinian friars, still perform the duties of papal sacristans, but the appointment of an Augustinian as bishop-sacristan lapsed under Pope John Paul II with the retirement of Petrus Canisius Van Lierde in 1991. In papal Rome the Augustinian friars always filled one of the Chairs of the Sapienza University, and one of the consultorships in the Congregation of Rites. In 1331 Pope John XXII appointed the Augustinian Hermits guardians