Studia teologiczne w Szkole Głównej Krakowskiej 1795-1809

Abstract

The activities of the Theological School, which became the Faculty of Theology at the Cracow’s Alma Mater in the academic year 1803/4, in the first period under the Austrian partition can be divided into three phases. In the first phase (1795—1800) the theological studies had the organization and program of the Kołłątaj reform of 1783. They were called the Theological School that was a part of Collegium Moralis. The teachers working in the school were nominated by the Commission of National Education. The next phase (1800—1804) is characterised by a gradual Austrian interference in the life and activity of Cracow’s Alma Mater. Because of the dissolution of the Bishops’ Castle Seminary and the Academic Seminary in 1801 and the removal of the alumni to the Diocesan Seminary in Stradom Street the Austrian authorities obliged the professors to teach also in the Diocesan Seminary. In the academic year. 1803/4 the Kołłątaj organization of university studies in Kraków was abolished and in place of Collegium Moralis and Collegium Physicum four departments were created: theology, law, medicine and philosophy. In the next phase (1805—1809) the Lvov University was moved to Kraków and attached to the Cracow’s Alma Mater. The whole structure of studies was completely changed according to the model obligatory in the Austrian Empire. Due to the forceful German trend many Polish professors left the school and the vacant chairs were staffed with the Czech and Austrians. In the Faculty of Theology, besides one Chair of Pastoral Theology directed by a Pole, the remaining chairs were taken by the benedictines from the dissolved abbey in Wiblingen in Swabia.