Pope Francis has sent congratulations to the Faculty of Theology of the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Kraków, which yesterday celebrated the 625th anniversary of its foundation.
The faculty, established in 1397, was long part of Kraków’s Jagiellonian University – one of the oldest universities in the world – but was expelled by the communist authorities in the 1950s, after which it continued to operate under the auspices of the Vatican.
“With you I thank God for this tradition lasting over six centuries,” the pontiff wrote in a letter to the grand chancellor of the university, Marek Jędraszewski, who is also the archbishop of Kraków.
Papież Franciszek skierował słowo do @UPJP2 w liście z okazji 625. rocznicy Wydziału Teologicznego. https://t.co/5OiCyQ7C21
— Uniwersytet Papieski Jana Pawła II w Krakowie (@UPJP2) January 11, 2022
Yet, while the university’s history is “noteworthy and important”, and we are obliged to “not forget tradition”, it is also important to “at the same time look with hope towards the future, and create the future”, he continued.
The pope urged the university community, while remaining “faithful to centuries of tradition”, to “read the signs of the times, and courageously accept new challenges to take the truth of the Gospel effectively to contemporary humanity and to the world”.
He cited the university’s motto, “Go and make disciples” (Matthew 28: 19), and the message of its patron, Polish Pope John Paul II, who spoke of the need for a “ministry of thought” through which universities spread the Christian message throughout the world.
Francis expressed his hope that the university will be a place where teaching is combined with “promotion of respect for every person”. A Catholic university should help the young to achieve their goals and dreams “on the basis of truth, goodness and beauty, which have their wellspring in God”.
As Francis notes in his letter, the theology department of the John Paul II Pontifical University is the successor of the faculty established on 11 January 1397 by a papal bull issued by Pope Boniface IX.
The university in Kraków, then known as Studium Generale, was initially founded in 1364 by King Kazimierz the Great, making it the oldest higher education institution in Poland and second only to Charles University in Prague in Central and Eastern Europe.
The academy initially had three faculties – liberal arts, medicine and law – and ceased to exist after the king’s death. It was revived thanks to the efforts of Jadwiga, Poland’s first female monarch, and her husband and successor, Władysław II Jagiełło. The new theology faculty, named in first place in the foundation act of 1400, was the university’s most important.
The theology faculty, twenty years after being expelled from the Jagiellonian University, was in 1974 granted the “pontifical” title thanks to the efforts of Karol Wojtyła, then archbishop of Kraków. In 1984 – three years after becoming Pope John Paul II – Wojtyła established it as an Academy of Theology.
In 2009, four years after his death, it became the Pontifical University of John Paul II. The institution today teaches around 3,500 students across three faculties: philosophy, church history and theology.
Main image credit: Jakub Hałum/Wikimedia Commons (under CC BY-SA 3.0)
Ben Koschalka is a translator and senior editor at Notes from Poland. Originally from Britain, he has lived in Kraków since 2005.
