Le Quien, Michel

LE quien, michel (1661-1733), French church historian. He was born in Boulogne-sur-Mer and completed his studies in Paris. Then, at the age of twenty, he entered the Dominican order. He specialized in patristic studies with a concentration on Eastern Christendom. He compiled a tremendous mass of materials for his major project, entitled Oriens Christianus (3 vols., Paris, 1740). He published a prospectus of that work in 1722, but the work itself was published posthumously. His edition of the Works of Saint John Damascene in 1712 remains a standard one. The accumulated material on the Eastern patriarchates, though not without shortcomings, is one of the most complete records on the subject.