With the victory of Counter Reformation in Transylvania, obtained by the Catholic Church with the support of the Habsburgs, and because of the restoration of the Bishopric of Alba Iulia in 1716, a modern institution for the education of the Catholic clergy of the province became necessary. The school, which was to work according to the doctrine of Catholic Reformation established by the Council of Trent (1545-1563), was established in the proximity of the Latin bishopric of Alba Iulia, in the new Vauban fortress.
The long road of Catholic restoration in Transylvania began with the incorporation of the province in the Habsburg Empire and the reestablishment of the Roman Catholic Bishopric in 1716. Around the mid-eighteenth century, the Roman Catholic Church was strong enough in Transylvania to establish its own seminary, the Seminarium Incarnatae Sapientiae (Seminary of Embodied Wisdom), founded in Alba Iulia by Bishop Zsigmond Sztoyka.
The school began operating in November 1753, with two teachers and five students. The teaching activities took place in a wing of the episcopal palace. Each teacher taught for two hours daily. The disciplines studied in the institute were Dogmatic Theology, Morals, Canon Law, and Ecclesiastic History. The length of studies was four years and the first handbooks were those by Paolo Lancelotti, Ferenc Kósa, and Antoine Arnauld.
In 1754, Bishop Sztoyka issued two sets of regulations of the seminary, one for teachers and another for the students. Students were not allowed to leave the institute, except during the summer, when they were obliged to assist the parish priests in church work. On holidays, the teachers and students organised trips, hikes or even hunting parties. The bishop offered students and professors three meals per day, as well as wine, beer and fire wood. On regular days, lunch and dinner consisted of three courses, on feast days, four. Bishop József Mártonfi (1746-1815) introduced the four meals every day. Influenced by the Enlightenment spirit of the age, the bishop decided that professors’ daily meals should be identical to those of the students. However, at each meal professors were given half a pint of wine, while students got the same quantity of beer. On feast days, these quantities were doubled.
In 1754, the first debate among the students of the seminary was organised, with the participation of Canon Antal Szeredai, one of the founding fathers of ecclesiastical historiography in Transylvania. Before that point, written exams could be replaced with participation in debates, but Bishop Zsigmond Bajtai, Bishop Sztoyka’s successor, cancelled this option. The debate was a medieval academic tradition which remained a high point in the cultural life of the city. Professors took part in the debates together with the students, and the bishop would be among the special guests.
In 1756, construction of the seminary’s first building began, east of the cathedral, on the place of Jerihon edifice. Two years later, an episcopal foundation established the library of the Theological Institute. Bishop Sztoyka improved the study conditions, enlarging the seminary and allocating funds for books purchase. He also endowed the seminary with a garden, a pharmacy, several vineyards and a brewery. Sztoyka established the institute’s first chapel, and endowed the library with books through his last will, dated 1770.
Bishop Bajtai established the third chair in 1761. The three professors taught Dogmatic Theology and Morals, Law, History and Biblical Studies, and a weekly exam (scabellum) was also introduced. Starting from 1771, the course program of Alba Iulia’s seminary followed that of similar institutions in the kingdom of Hungary.
The time when Ignatius Batthyáni was bishop (1780-1798) coincided with the reforms of Emperor Joseph II. After the abolition of monastic orders in 1778, the former building of the Jesuit monastery of Alba Iulia became part of the seminary. A former seminary building was used for the new high school, and as the residence of the professors, a decision which encouraged some professors from Cluj to move to Alba Iulia. Bishop Batthyáni (1741-1798) reorganised the professorial council, which came to have six members and was involved in the preparation of the teaching program. He introduced new disciplines such as Liturgy, Greek, Hebrew, Catechism, Homiletics and German, as well the study of a profession of the student’s choice.
In 1783, the Alba Iulia seminary was closed and one of its building, in the proximity of Báthory church, was converted for military purposes. The seminary’s original building suffered the same fate, and the students were moved to Cluj. After the disbanding of monastic orders in 1792, Bishop Batthyáni obtained the church and monastery of the Trinitarians, to which he relocated the seminary and established a science institute.
In the time of Bishop Ignác Szepesi (1780-1883), the seminary was attended by 70-80 students. The bishop updated the program according to the new requirements and inaugurated a course on Philosophy for initiation into theology. The new teaching program included notions of logic, metaphysics, algebra, ethics, geometry, trigonometry, general history, physics, rural economy and the Romanian language. He also encouraged the students to prepare to preach the Sunday service. In order to improve the material properties of the institute, the bishop imposed a requirement on the priests to testate a quarter of their properties to the seminary. The new regulations established the seminary’s management structure and the obligations of the students. These regulations are, by-and-large, the same today. The students’ program started at 5 a.m. and ended at 9 p.m. Most of their time was spent in prayer and study.
Despite the revolutionary events of 1848-1849, which disturbed the activities of the seminary, Bishop Zsigmond Kovács (1820-1887) introduced monthly exams for periodical evaluation of learning. (L.S.)
