Politica şcolară a Curţii de la Viena la finele secolului XVIII şi începutul secolului XIX. Seminariile şi învăţământul teologic superior de pe terito
The School Policy of the Vienna Court at the End of the 18th and the Beginning of the 19th Century. Seminaries and Upper Theological Education in Hung

Summary/Abstract: The School Policy of the Vienna Court at the End of the 18th and the Beginning of the 19th Century. Seminaries and Upper Theological Education in Hungary. The present article aims at presenting several aspects related to the school policy of the Court of Vienna, namely the evolution of the Roman-Catholic upper theological education in Hungary and the Banat in two distinct periods: the second half of the 18th and the first half of the 19th century. Each time span displays specific features. In a first stage, up to the reign of emperor Francis I, one may speak of a permanent state interference in the internal organization of the ecclesiastic education, chiefly the Catholic one, throughout the empire, while afterwards the entire educational system passed under the jurisdiction of the church bodies. In 1804, the emperor himself had managed to lay the foundation of the Funds for Seminaries, with incomes coming from old clerical legacies, episcopal revenues and from the ministry fund for denominations. Consequently, between 1804-1812, several theological seminaries for the education of future priests were opened in Hungary. Such schools started to function in: Cenad, Diakovár, Kassa, Rozsnyó, Sãtmar, Székesfehérvár and Szepes. Subsequent province councils held in Esztergom in 1858, namely in Kalocsa in 1863, also debated upon the question of the adjacent secondary schools or Small Seminaries, which trained the future priests. According to the decrees issued following the debates, both bishops and the subordinate inferior clergy were to take care of the maintenance and support of these institutions. In the case of the Cenad bishopric, such Catholic secondary school opened much later than those already functioning in Hungary since the first half of the 19th century. The success was mainly due to the efforts of bishop Alexander Bonnaz, who had been granted a substantial financial support by the emperor himself, on the occasion of the latter's visit to the Banat in 1872. Thus, a well consolidated upper theological education functioned on the Hungarian territory, among whose ranks the upper theological seminary of Cenad had played a distinct part, enjoying a great prestige that would last until World War I.

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