 In 1970, urged by the Abbot of Hauterive and the Dominican theologian and priest, Fr.Marie-Dominique Philippe, to teach these seminarians personally, Lefebvre approached the Bishop of Fribourg, who, three months before resigning his see, approved, with a document predated by six days to 1 November 1970, the founding of SSPX at the level of a "pia unio", the preliminary stage towards becoming an officially recognized religious institute or Society of Apostolic Life.Affluent Swiss laymen offered the seminary at Écône in Switzerland to the newly formed group.