Foundation Its foundation dates back to cardinal
Giulio Antonio Santorio. As protector of the
Basilian monks he set up a reformed congregation for the Italo-Albanian people of the
Byzantine Rite in 1573, from which he developed the idea of a seminary for seminarians of the eastern rite, which opened in 1576 and was approved by Gregory XIII with a
bull on 13 January the following year. The priests it trained were intended to oppose
Turkish expansion into former
Byzantine lands in the Balkans, Greece and in the Christian east in general, prevent the
Protestant Reformation spreading there and help bring the Eastern Churches back into communion with Rome. Between 1576 and 1577 the College was hosted by several houses in Rome, until in 1577 it found a permanent home on what is now
Via del Babuino. Its students came from the
Italo-Albanian Greek Catholic Church in Italy, Greece, the Arab dioceses of the
Melkite Greek Catholic Church, as well as from
Romania,
Bulgaria,
Hungary,
Ukraine and
Belarus.
Later history The college was managed by the
Roman Curia during the peak of the Curia's reorganisation by
pope Sixtus V. From 1591 to 1604 it was managed by the
Dominicans, then by the
Jesuits and then from 1773 onwards by the
Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. From 1803 to 1845 no teaching took place at the College - instead, its students attended the College of the Propagation of the Faith (now the
Pontifical Urbaniana University). In 1886 the college reopened under the management of the
Resurrectionist Congregation, before shifting back to the Jesuits in 1890 and to the
Benedictines in 1897. In 1919 it was put under the charge of the Belgian Benedictine community, headed since 1956 by
Chevetogne Abbey. The current Pro Rector is the Rev. Fr. Thomas Bailey, OSB and the Rev. Fr. Gabriel Florian-Borzos is the Spiritual Director of the college. ==Rite==