Pontifical Oriental Institute

Santa Maria Maggiore by Alberta Pisa (1905)

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.[2] 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.[3] 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.[4] In many ways, therefore, the position of the Orientale is ideal.

Mgr Michel d'Herbigny, Bishop and Rector of the Pontifical Oriental Institute (Rome)

The Orientale was created as a twin institution to the Congregation for the Eastern Church, whose name would change in 1967 to Congregation for the Eastern Churches. Without the link to this important organ of the Holy See, it would be impossible to grasp the purpose and mission of the Orientale, nor how the Orientale could be founded in the midst of the "useless massacre" of World War I, 1917. The question to which the creation of the Orientale was meant to be the answer had been long in coming. Known as la question d’Orient, the question was first posed after the Ottoman’s humiliating defeat at the hands of the Russians in 1774 (cf. the Treaty of Kutchuk-Kainarji), becoming ever more poignant ever since Napoleon set foot in Egypt in 1798: what was to be done with the millions of Christians under the Ottomans once the Ottoman empire would disappear? The question reached its acme in the Eucharistic Congress of Jerusalem in 1893, when the Eastern Catholic Patriarchs made the grievances of their communities known to the papal legate, Cardinal Benoît Langenieux, who forwarded them to the pope. Leo XIII at once convoked an assembly of Eastern Catholic Patriarchs for the following year (1894), from which emerged the apostolic letter Orientalium dignitas[5], known as the Magna Carta of the rights of Eastern Catholics. With the collapse of the Russian empire a reality after the February revolution of 1917 and the demise of the Ottoman empire in sight, the pope decided to act.[6] With the motu proprio regarding the Eastern Congregation, Providentis Dei[7] (1.05.1917), the pope created the Oriental Congregation; with the other motu proprio Orientis catholici[8](15.10.1917), he created the Orientale.[9] The pope reserved to himself the prefecture of the new Congregation, whose head was therefore only a Secretary, although a cardinal (cfr. canon 257 of the Pio-Benedictine[10] Codex Iuris canonici[11] of 1917 specified precisely this). Already three years after founding the Orientale, Benedict XV granted it, through the apostolic constitution, Quod nobis in condendo, the right to confer degrees.[12] From the start the pope insisted on the necessity of a richly supplied Eastern library[13] to second the study and the research of the Orientale population.

Pope Benedict XV

At the beginning the professors were chosen from various orders and even among lay people. These were a White Father, Antoine Delpuch[14] (1868-1936), who served as pro-president[15] in the first year of the Orientale's functioning (1918-1919); two Benedictines, including Ildefonso Schuster; three Assumptionists, including Martin Jugie (1878-1954), a professor at the Orientale for only the first few years, but who was to write a monumental synthesis of the history of Eastern theology; a Dominican; a Mechitarist; four Jesuits, including Guillaume de Jerphanion (1877-1948), a famous archaeologist; two Russians, a Greek and an Ethiopian; and three lay persons, including Michelangelo Guidi, an outstanding philologist and a historian.[16]

Soon after Pius XI became pope he felt that it would be better if one order took care not only of running the place but also of preparing those who could eventually take over. His choice fell on the Jesuits, and in a brief to Fr. General Vladimir Ledochowski (14.09.1922) he entrusted to the Order the Orientale.[17] This had been the suggestion of Abbot Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster, OSB, who had also become, in the meantime, the first full president. Now it was the turn of the first Jesuit president (1922-1931), and that was Michel d'Herbigny (1880-1957). A very talented man, he managed to impart to the nascent institution new élan, with its own publications and even the new seat in the Piazza di Santa Maria Maggiore. Complications on his very delicate mission to Russia led to his early retirement. D’Herbigny was followed as president by Emil Hermann (1932-1951), a German canon lawyer of note, whose prudence helped him guide the Institute during the war period; Ignacio Ortiz de Urbina (1951-1957), a Basque and a renowned patristic scholar; Alphonse Raes (1957-1962), an accomplished Syriac scholar who became Prefect of the Vatican Library; Joseph Gill (1962-1963), a great expert on the Council of Florence (1438-1445) and chief editor of the Acts of this council; and again Joseph Gill (1964-1967), who in 1965 began to bear the title of Jesuit Rector; Ivan Žužek (1967-1972), later the secretary of the Pontifical Commission for the revision of Eastern canon law; Georges Dejaifve (1972-1976), noted ecumenist; Eduard Huber (1976-1981), former rector of the Meudon School of Russian; Peter-Hans Kolvenbach (1981-1983), who after a brief stint became Superior general of the Society of Jesus for a quarter of a century (1983-2008); Gilles Pelland (1984-1986), who was soon made rector of the Gregorian University; Gino Piovesana (1986-1990), whose experience as rector of the Sophia University of Tokyo and his expertise in Russian philosophy stood him in good stead; Clarence Gallagher (1990-1995), a canon lawyer, dean and rector; Gilles Pelland (1995-1998), the only rector to have two different terms separated in time; Hèctor Vall Vilardell (1998-2007), whose aplomb assured him nine years as rector; Cyril Vasil' (2007-2009), who after two years became Secretary of the Congregation; Sunny Kokkaravalayil (May 2009-May 2010), who was pro-rector for a year and superior for seven; James McCann (2010-2015), who after leaving office became Senior Vice President of the Gregorian Foundation, New York; Samir Khalil Samir, who was pro-rector from 20 April 2015 to 25 August 2015, and David Nazar (2015-), in whose term the Orientale was not only re-structured but also became fused, as a community, with the adjoining community of the Pontifical Russian College, popularly known as Russicum.[18]

The hundred year history of the institution (1917-2017) may tentatively be divided, first, into an eleven year period at the beginning, when the Orientale was trying to assert itself and become recognized, which came with Pius XI’s encyclical dedicated to the Orientale, Rerum orientalium[19] (1928). Then followed a thirty-year period bringing us to the eve of Vatican II (1928-1958), when already some of the rich harvest that was expected began to be reaped, and the foundations for others to build on had been laid. Yet the next thirty years after the council up to 1989, the fresh breath of Vatican II brought accrued interest in the Christian East and in the Orientale. When with 1989 Eastern Europe opened up, a new chapter of the Orientale’s relating to the hitherto forbidden East started and many new students from these countries could now study at the Orientale.[20]

Pope Francis visit to the Orientale in 2017. Cardinal Leonardo Sandri to his left. The Very Reverend Arturo Sosa, SJ, Superior General of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) to his right.

The Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major, which shares the square with the Pontifical Oriental Institute

As an Institute, the Orientale has only two faculties, one for ecclesiastical sciences, the other for Eastern canon law. At first there was only one faculty, and it comprised the programme already outlined in Benedict XV's founding charter (1917), that is theology, comprising spirituality, liturgy, and canon law, plus archaeology and such subsidiary sciences as are necessary to secure a balanced programme of societal structures, art, culture, history. In this curriculum, languages play a major part, and, besides Italian which is the main teaching language, ancient Greek, Syriac, Russian, and Church Slavonic, have always loomed large. Besides Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopic, and Georgian, which have become part and parcel of the curriculum, in recent years modern Greek and Romanian have been added. Modern Greek is divided into four levels, whereby one may obtain a diploma from the Greek government. For canon law students, Latin is required and taught. A well-developed Italian language programme has become the hard core of the propaedeutic year.

Branching off from the Faculty of Eastern Ecclesial Sciences, the faculty of canon law was created in 1971, partly in view of the revision of Eastern canon law and a corresponding codex. Secretary of this commission was Fr. Ivan Žužek (1924-2004). The Orientale, with its professors of canon law, continues to serve as the main centre for the elaboration of the Code which is used around the world by both Catholic and Orthodox churches of the East.

Archbishop Rowan Williams at the Orientale for the 2016 Donahue Chair lecture

Besides instruction for licentiate to doctoral degrees, the Orientale has acquired a name for its publications. In 1923 appeared the first number of Orientalia christiana. When hundred such numbers had been published, the series was divided, in 1934, in Orientalia Christiana Analecta, exclusively for monographs, and Orientalia Chrisitana Periodica, for articles and book reviews.[21] These publications were written by experts in the field and acquired by libraries. After the promulgation of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches (CCEO), in 1990, it was decided to launch a new series for monographs in canon law. In 1992 a new publication, Kanonika, was published, whose first number appeared in 1992.[22] The critical edition of Anaphorae Orientales, beginning with Alphonse Raes in 1939, brought attention to one among the many forgotten treasures of the Christian East and has been continued by the renowned liturgist of the Orientale, Professor Robert Taft, SJ. When William Macomber published the oldest known text of the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, little could he have imagined how useful it was for the Congregation of Faith in 2001 when it decided for the orthodoxy and validity of an anaphora without the explicit words of consecration.[23]