SEPULCHRE, a tomb, or place destined for the interment of the dead. This term is chiefly used in speaking of the burying places of the ancients, those of the moderns being usually called tombs.
Sepulchres were held sacred and inviolable, and the care taken of them has always been held a religious duty, grounded on the fear of God, and the belief of the soul's immortality. Those who have searched or violated them have been thought odious by all nations, and were always severely punished.
The Egyptians called sepulchres, eternal houses: in contradistinction to their ordinary houses or palaces, which they called ions, on account of their short stay in the one, in comparison of their long abode in the other.
Regular canons of St SEPULCHRE, a religious order, formerly instituted at Jerusalem, in honour to the holy sepulchre, or the tomb of Jesus Christ.
Many of these canons were brought from the Holy Land into Europe, particularly into France by Lewis the younger; into Poland, by Jaxa a Polish gentleman; and into
into Flanders, by the counts thereof; many also came into England. This order was however suppressed by pope Innocent VIII who gave its revenues and effects to that of our Lady of Bethlehem; which also becoming extinct, they were bestowed on the knights of St John of Jerusalem. But the suppression did not take effect in Poland, where they still subsist, as also in several provinces of Germany. These canons follow the rule of St. Augustine.