page_title: Pontifical Oriental Institute
section_title: The Early Years
hierarchical_section_title: Pontifical Oriental Institute / History / The Early Years
caption_attribution_description: English: Paintings of Rome by Alberto Pisa (1905)
context_page_description: The Pontifical Oriental Institute, is a Catholic institution of higher education located in Rome. The plan of creating a school of higher learning for Eastern Christianity had been on the agenda of the Catholic Church since at least Pope Leo XIII, but it was only realized in 1917 by Pope Benedict XV. The Orientale forms part of the consortium of the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Pontifical Biblical Institute, both in Rome. All three institutions are run by the Society of Jesus. While the Orientale depends on the Holy See, its management is entrusted to the Society of Jesus. Its Chancellor is the Prefect of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches and its Vice-chancellor is the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, while the Congregation for Catholic Education is the dicastery competent for approving the academic programmes of the Orientale.
  The student population for the academic year 2018-2019: 351 in the Faculty of Eastern Ecclesiastical Sciences; 71 in the Faculty of Eastern Canon Law; Total: 422, of whom 242 were guest students. Each year, another approximately 400 scholars visit the library for research purposes.
context_section_description: The Orientale’s first provisional seat was in the immediate vicinity of the Vatican, in the Palazzo dei Convertendi, Piazza Scossacavalli, which later had to give way to Via della Conciliazione. The Institute was briefly re-located to the current premises of the Pontifical Biblical Institute, in via della Pilotta, 25, Rome until 1926 when it settled into its permanent seat at Piazza di Santa Maria Maggiore, 7. Of all churches in Rome, the Basilica of St. Mary Major in the same square is the one which evokes the East most closely. Its famous mosaics were executed under Pope Sixtus III (432-440) to celebrate the third ecumenical council of Ephesus (431), which, by emphasizing that Jesus Christ is one person, brought out as a consequence that Mary, his Mother, is the Mother of God, or the Theotokos, as the Greeks call her. As the Basilica prides itself on having the relics of the crib, it is thus liturgically known as “ad Praesepe”, the Church of the Crib. Here, moreover, in the late 860s the apostles of the Slavs, Saints Cyril and Methodius, deposited their liturgy books, an indication that now, after the pope’s approval, one could celebrate the liturgy in Church Slavonic. In a side street opposite against the Orientale there is the Basilica of Santa Prassede, with its Carolingian mosaics attesting Pope St Pascal I’s revulsion against the iconoclasm which at the time of the construction of the Basilica (817) had resumed in the East. Nearby, there is a marble slab reminding us that St Cyril, St Methodius’ brother, died there in 869. As part of the complex of the block where the Orientale is there is the church of St. Anthony the Great (S. Antonio Abate), of whom all Easterners are particularly fond. He is also popular in Rome, where people still recall the times when the blessing of the animals took place in this church. Ever since the creation of the Pontifical Russian College in 1929, known as the Russicum, by Pius XI (1921-1939), the church has been run by Jesuits living in the college. In many ways, therefore, the position of the Orientale is ideal.
caption: Santa Maria Maggiore by Alberta Pisa (1905)
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