Bratislava, March 11, 2023 (KAP) A number of Slovakian theology students and prospective priests are about to change their training location from Bratislava to Nitra. The building of the Roman Catholic Theological Faculty of Bratislava’s Comenius University and the seminary of the Archdiocese of Bratislava, in which the seminarians of the Archdiocese of Trnava also study, will be completely renovated in the next two years. The building in Kapitelgasse opposite Pressburg’s St. Martin’s Cathedral was erected between 1628 and 1635 as a Jesuit college. It no longer meets the requirements of modern teaching and seminar operations, as reported by the Catholic media in Slovakia.
The priestly formation of the candidates from Trnava and Bratislava, but also the day study of the faculty will take place from September in the seminary in Nitra. In addition to the candidates for the priesthood from the diocese of Nitra, those from the diocese of Banska Bystrica have also been studying there since 2019.
The amalgamation of the seminaries of the western ecclesiastical province of Slovakia will save lecturers and professors, some of whom will, however, allow the establishment of new study programs. The dean’s office of the Pressburg faculty, the doctoral program and distance learning for religious education will remain in Bratislava. The theological faculty of the University of Trnava, which is also based in the Slovakian capital, is not affected by the decrees.
Significantly fewer seminarians
As Stanislav Zvolensky, archbishop of Bratislava and former chair of the Slovak Bishops’ Conference, told Catholic TV Lux, the number of student priests has decreased dramatically over the past decade, from 425 in 2013 to 226 at the end of 2022.
Source: kathpress
