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defence or explanation. Around it, as in the case of Ursinus, his laurels will be perennially green ; and, as being one of its authors, he will be longest and most gratefully remembered by the Reformed Church, See Snilhott" Okvicmus' iind Ursinus' Ltben und Schriften (Elbcrfeld, 1857) ; Adam, ViUe Germ. Theol. p. 596 sq. ; llerzog, Reul-EncyHopddie, x, 60-i ; Harbaugh, Fathers of the. German Ref. Ch. i, 246-201 ; Hagenbach, Vdter u. Be fjr tinder der Ref. Kirche, vol. viii (Elberf. 1857, 8vo) ; id. Kirchengesch. vol. iii ; A met: Presbyt. Rev. July, 1863, p. o75; Corwin, Ma7i. Ref. Ch. p. 171 sq. ; Schrdckh, Kirchengesch. seit der Ref. v, 182 sq. (H. H.)
Oley, Barnabas, a learned English divine of con- siderable note, was bom at Thorp, near Wakefield, about the opening of the 17th centurj-. He was educated at Cambridge; was proctor of the university in 1635, and afterwards president of Clare Hall. He was vicar of Great Gransden, in Himtingdonshire, fifty-three years, and a considerable benefactor to the parish, as appears from an inscription in that church. After suffering much by the Kebellion, he was in 1060 restored to his fellowship and vicarage, and on Sept. 4 of that year was installed prebendary of Worcester. In 1679 he was promoted to the archdeaconry of Ely. This dignity he afterwards voluntarily resigned, in his great humility not thinking himself sufficient to discharge the duty of it; which corrects a mistake of Mr. Woods {Fast. Oxon. vol. ii, col. 850, 1st ed.) that Dr. Taywell succeeded in the archdeaconry on Mr. Oley's decease ; for it was on his resignation. Oley died Feb. 20, 1685. He published the works of Dr. Thomas Jackson, and Herbert's Country Pa J son. See Hook, Eccles. Biog. vii, 461.
Olga, St., a noted saint of the Russian Church, was by birth of very humble descent, but became grand princess of Russia as the wife of the duke Igor of Kiev. This prince, having undertaken an expedition against Constantinople, which proved unsuccessful, was slain on his return to his own dominions, and his widow Olga thereupon assumed the government in his stead, and for many years governed with much prudence and success. Having resigned the government to her son, Vratislav, about the year 952, she repaired to Constantinople, where she was baptized by the patriarch Tlieophilaktes, and received into the Church, assuming at baptism the name of Helena, in honor of St. Helena, mother of Con- stantine. She returned to Russia, and labored with much zeal for the propagation of her new creed ; but she failed in her attempt to induce her son, Swiinto- slav, to embrace Christianity. Her grandson, Vladi- mir, having married Chrysoberga, the sister of the em- perors of Constantinople, Basil and Constantine, was baptized in the year 988 ; but Olga did not live to en- joy this gratification, having died in 978, or, according to other authorities, as early as 970. As the first Chris- tian grand princess, she was canonized after her death, and she has come to he held in high veneration in the Russian Church. Her festival falls on July 21. The practice of venerating her appears to date from the early period of the Russian Church, before the schism between the Eastern and Western churches. In the Latin Church her name is not to be found in the cata- logue of the saints. How important is her relation to Russian Church history (iibbon {Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, v, 435 sq.) has well pointed out. A female, perhaps of the basest origin, who could re- venge the death and assume the sceptre of her husband Igor, must have been endowed with those active vir- tues whicli command the fear and obedience of barba- rism. In a moment of foreign and domestic peace she sailed from Kiev for Constantinople, where in the sac- rament of baptism she received the venerable name of the empress Helena. After her return to Kiev and Nov- gorod, she firmly persisted in her new religion ; but her labors in the propagation of the (Jospel were not attended with success, and both her family and nation adhered with obstinacy or indifference to the religion of their fa-
thers. Yet the lessons and examples of the pious Olga had made a deep though secret impression on the minds of her son and people. See Neander, Church History, iii, 328; Gieseler, Church History, ii, 231 ; Kurtz, Ldn- buch der Kirchengeschichte, i, 211 ; Strahl, Gesch. d. Russ. Kirche, p. 51 sq. ; Nestor, Annals (in Schlozer's transL), v, 58 sq. ; Karamsin, Gesch. d. Russ. Reichs, i, 136 sq.; Duncan, Hist, of Russia, p. 46, 47. (J. H. W.)
Oliba OF Vic;, a French prelate, was born in the latter part of the 10th century. His father, who was also called Oliba or Oliva, was count of Cerdagne and Besalu. Abandoning to his older brothers, Bernard and Guifroi, the estates of Besalu and Cerdagne, young Oliba became a monk, and in 1009 was appointed abbe of Ripol, as well as of St. Michel de Cusan, in the diocese of Elne. In 1019 we see him at the same time abbe of Ripol, of Lusan, and bishop of Ausone, or of Vic, then belonging to the see of Narbonne, in Spain. Oliba died in 1047. All agree in praising his conduct as a bishop and an abbe. He was a powerful prelate ; learned, dis- creet, a skilful and vigilant administrator. Several years before his death he abdicated the bishopric of Vic. The Histoire Litteraire, which counts him among the num- ber of French writers, mentions several letters of Oliba, published by Bahize in his Apj)endice to the Marca Hispcmica, upon statutes, and a treatise upon the Cycle Pascal, which is unpublished. See Gallia Christ, vol. vi, col. 1098 ; Hist. Litter, de la France,\\\, 566. — Hoefer, Nour. Biog. Gene.rale, xxxviii, 613.