Blackfriars Priory (formally the Priory of the Holy Spirit) is a Dominican religious community in

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

, England. It houses two educational institutions: Blackfriars Studium, the centre of theological studies of the English Province of the Dominican Order (although it numbers members of other orders and lay people among its students and lecturers); and Blackfriars Hall, a constituent

permanent private hall A permanent private hall (PPH) in the University of Oxford is an educational institution within the university. There are five permanent private halls at Oxford, four of which admit undergraduates. They were founded by different Christian denomina ...

of the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. The current prior of Blackfriars is Robert Gay, and the regent of both the hall and the studium is John O'Connor. The name ''Blackfriars'' is commonly used in Britain to denote a house of Dominican

friars A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the ...

, a reference to their black ''cappa'', which forms part of their

habit A habit (or wont as a humorous and formal term) is a routine of behavior that is repeated regularly and tends to occur subconsciously.

. Blackfriars is located in central Oxford on St Giles', between the

Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies The Faculty of Classics, previously the Faculty of Literae Humaniores, is a subdivision of the University of Oxford concerned with the teaching and research of classics. The teaching of classics at Oxford has been going on for 900 years, and was ...

and St Cross College.

History

The Dominicans arrived in Oxford on 15 August 1221, at the instruction of a General Chapter meeting headed by Saint Dominic himself, little more than a week after the friar's death. As such, the hall is heir to the oldest tradition of teaching in Oxford, a tradition that precedes both the aularian houses that would characterise the next century and the collegiate houses that would characterise the rest of the University of Oxford's history. In 1236 they established a new and extensive priory in the St. Ebbes district. Like all the monastic houses in Oxford, Blackfriars came into rapid and repeated conflict with the university authorities. With the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

, all monastic houses, including Blackfriars, were suppressed. The Dominicans did not return to Oxford for some 400 years, until 1921 when Blackfriars was refounded by Bede Jarrett as a religious house. The original priory building was designed by

Edward Doran Webb Edward Doran Webb (1864–1931) was a British ecclesiastical architect. Based in Wiltshire, he worked on several churches including at Salisbury, Finchley, Swindon and Aldermaston. Webb also designed the Birmingham Oratory. He had strong connec ...

and completed in 1929. The Dominican studium at Blackfriars had a close relationship with the university, culminating in the establishment of Blackfriars as a permanent private hall in 1994.

Blackfriars' Studium

Blackfriars offers those preparing for the Catholic priesthood the Baccalaureate in Sacred Theology (STB) granted by the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, ''Angelicum'' in Rome. It is also possible for lay men and women to begin the Angelicum's STB programme by studying in the Blackfriars Studium and to conclude the programme with at least a year's full-time study at the ''Angelicum''.

Blackfriars Hall

Blackfriars Hall is a

, meaning that it is owned and governed by an outside institution (in this case, the English Province of the

Order of Preachers The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of Cal ...

) and not by its fellows. Blackfriars Hall is a centre for the study of theology and philosophy informed by the intellectual tradition of

St Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known wit ...

. It admits men and women of any faith for Oxford undergraduate degrees in theology schools, PPE and for a wide range of postgraduate degrees. Blackfriars Hall is the home of a number of other institutes including, the Las Casas Institute on ethics, governance and social justice. Launched in November 2008, the institute contributes to the hall's founding vision to be a centre of the social as well as the sacred sciences. Its founding director (from October 2008 to January 2011) was Francis Davis; the director is

Richard Finn Richard Damian Finn, O.P. (born 27 March 1963) is presently Director of the Las Casas Institute for Social Justice, at Blackfriars, Oxford, and a member of the Theology Faculty and the Classics Faculty at the University of Oxford. He has previo ...

. The Aquinas Institute was established in 2004 under the directorship of Fergus Kerr. It aims to foster study of St Thomas at Oxford through seminars, conferences, summer schools and programmes. Patrons of the institute include John Haldane, Alasdair MacIntyre and

Eleonore Stump Eleonore Stump (born August 9, 1947) is the Robert J. Henle Professor of Philosophy at Saint Louis University, where she has taught since 1992. Biography Stump received a BA in classical languages from Grinnell College (1969), where she was v ...

People associated with Blackfriars

Notable former students

Joseph William Tobin Joseph William Tobin, CSsR, (born May 3, 1952) is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. A member of the Redemptorist order, he has been the archbishop of Archdiocese of Newark in New Jersey, since 2017. He previously served as the ...

, C.Ss.R., Cardinal prelate and Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark * Anthony Fisher , 9th Roman Catholic Archbishop of Sydney *

James Alison James Alison (born 4 October 1959) is an English Roman Catholic priest and theologian. Alison is noted for his application of René Girard's anthropological theory to Christian systematic theology and for his work on LGBT issues. Life and Wor ...

, theologian and author *

Delia Gallagher Delia Buckley Gallagher (born March 11, 1970) is an American journalist based in Rome who currently serves as the Senior Editor for ''Inside the Vatican'' magazine. She formerly served as CNN's Faith and Values Correspondent. Based in New York, G ...

, journalist,

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

Faith and Values Correspondent *

Herbert McCabe Herbert John Ignatius McCabe (2 August 192628 June 2001) was a Dominican priest, theologian and philosopher. Life Herbert McCabe was born in Middlesbrough in the North Riding of Yorkshire. He studied chemistry at Manchester University, bu ...

, theologian and philosopher * Malcolm McMahon, Archbishop of Liverpool * Aidan Nichols, first John Paul II Memorial Visiting Lecturer at the University of Oxford

Fellows and academics

* John Battle - former MP for Leeds West * Brian Davies - philosopher and former Regent *

- former Regent and Novice Master for The English Province of The Order of Preachers * Andrew Linzey - theologian, author, and prominent figure in the Christian vegetarian movement * Timothy Radcliffe - Master of the Order of Preachers from 1992 to 2001 * Benjamin Earl - Procurator General of the Order of Preachers * Fergus Kerr - Regent (1998-2004) *

James MacMillan Sir James Loy MacMillan, (born 16 July 1959) is a Scottish classical composer and conductor. Early life MacMillan was born at Kilwinning, in North Ayrshire, but lived in the East Ayrshire town of Cumnock until 1977. His father is James MacMi ...

- classical composer and conductor, Honorary Fellow *

John Saward John Saward (born in 1947) is a Roman Catholic priest. He is Senior Research Fellow at Blackfriars in the University of Oxford in England. He previously held the posts of lecturer in dogmatic theology at St Cuthbert's College, Ushaw (1980–1992) ...

- fellow of Greyfriars and associate lecturer at Blackfriars *

Roger Scruton Sir Roger Vernon Scruton (; 27 February 194412 January 2020) was an English philosopher and writer who specialised in aesthetics and political philosophy, particularly in the furtherance of traditionalist conservative views. Editor from 1982 ...

- philosopher who specialised in

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...

* John Loughlin - Emeritus Fellow of

St Edmund's College, Cambridge St Edmund's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England. Founded in 1896, it is the second-oldest of the four Cambridge colleges oriented to mature students, which accept only students reading for postgraduate degr ...

Burials at Blackfriars Abbey, Oxford

* Robert Bacon (writer) *

Richard Fishacre Richard Fishacre (or Fitzacre) (c. 1200–1248) was an English Dominican theologian, the first to hold the Dominican chair at the University of Oxford. He taught at Oxford and authored the first commentary on the Four Books of Sentences of Pete ...

References

External links

Blackfriars Priory website

Blackfriars Hall website
{{Dominican Order in Britain 1221 establishments in England Educational institutions established in the 13th century Educational institutions established in 1921 Permanent private halls of the University of Oxford Buildings and structures of the University of Oxford