The Papal Seminary in

Pune Pune ( ; , ISO 15919, ISO: ), previously spelled in English as Poona (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1978), is a city in the state of Maharashtra in the Deccan Plateau, Deccan plateau in Western ...

, India, is a

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

educational institute whose primary function is training

priests A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, ...

Overview

The seminary trains students from three particular churches in India: the

Latin Church The Latin Church () is the largest autonomous () particular church within the Catholic Church, whose members constitute the vast majority of the 1.3 billion Catholics. The Latin Church is one of 24 Catholic particular churches and liturgical ...

Syro-Malabar Catholic Church The Syro-Malabar Church, also known as the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, is an Eastern Catholic church based in Kerala, India. It is a '' sui iuris'' (autonomous) particular church in full communion with the Holy See and the worldwide Cathol ...

, and

Syro-Malankara Catholic Church The Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, also known as the Malankara Syrian Catholic Church, is an Eastern Catholic '' sui iuris'' particular church that employs the West Syriac Rite and is in full communion with the worldwide Catholic Church posse ...

. , it caters to the formation of about 160 seminarians per year from most of the dioceses of India.

History

Founding

Pope

Leo XIII Pope Leo XIII (; born Gioacchino Vincenzo Raffaele Luigi Pecci; 2March 181020July 1903) was head of the Catholic Church from 20 February 1878 until his death in July 1903. He had the fourth-longest reign of any pope, behind those of Peter the A ...

, who inspired the present Pop
Pope Leo XIV
established the Papal Seminary for India,

Burma Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and ha ...

and

Ceylon Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

in 1890. The task of finding a suitable place for it was entrusted to Msgr. Ladislaus Zaleski. After travelling within India and Ceylon (now called Sri Lanka), he chose to locate the seminary in

Ampitiya Ampitiya () is a suburb of the city of Kandy, Sri Lanka. It is located within the country's Central Province. Ampitiya is approximately 3 miles from the Kandy city centre. Ampitiya is administratively divided into the two sections of Ampitiya n ...

, a settlement close to Kandy. He subsequently became the Apostolic Delegate to India, Burma and Ceylon and took up residence in

Kandy Kandy (, ; , ) is a major city located in the Central Province, Sri Lanka, Central Province of Sri Lanka. It was the last capital of the Sinhalese monarchy from 1469 to 1818, under the Kingdom of Kandy. The city is situated in the midst of ...

. Zaleski insisted that the seminary be entrusted to the

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

Missionaries of the Belgian province (at work in the Bengal Mission). The students were selected from the dioceses of India and Sri Lanka, and were to be trained as leaders of the Churches in their own countries. This was one of the first major seminaries to be supported by the Pontifical Society of

St. Peter the Apostle Saint Peter (born Shimon Bar Yonah; 1 BC – AD 64/68), also known as Peter the Apostle, Simon Peter, Simeon, Simon, or Cephas, was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus and one of the first leaders of the Jewish Christian#Jerusalem ekklēsia, e ...

. The seminary opened its doors in 1893 under the rectorship of Rev.

Sylvain Grosjean Sylvain Grosjean (born 19 September 1990) is a French badminton player. He has won numerous junior title in France, and in 2009 he attracted the international attention by winning the boys' doubles title at the 2009 European Junior Badminton Cham ...

, then Rector of St Xavier's School, Calcutta. In 1926 the seminary was empowered by the Vatican to confer Ecclesiastical degrees in Philosophy and Theology.''FIUC website''
/ref> During its 62 years of existence in Kandy, over 700 students were ordained to the priesthood; 51 of these became

bishop A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of di ...

s and three became

cardinals Cardinal or The Cardinal most commonly refers to * Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds **''Cardinalis'', genus of three species in the family Cardinalidae ***Northern cardinal, ''Cardinalis cardinalis'', the common cardinal of ...

1955: Transfer to Pune, India

The seminary moved to Pune in 1955.Carlos de Melo, ''The Papal Seminary of Kandy-Pune: A Hundred Years of History'', Pune: 1993 The transfer of the seminary to India was driven by financial and traveling difficulties; the

independence of India The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events in South Asia with the ultimate aim of ending British Raj, British colonial rule. It lasted until 1947, when the Indian Independence Act 1947 was passed. The first nationalistic ...

in 1947 and the consequent political separation of India and Sri Lanka made it difficult for Indian seminarians to travel to Kandy. The new buildings for the seminary were designed by architect

Silvio Galizia Silvio Galizia (August 5, 1925, in Muri AG – November 28, 1989, in Rome) was a Swiss architect and artist. Most of his life he lived and worked in Rome, Italy. Life Silvio Galizia studied at the ETH Zurich. He gained his first professional e ...

. The original seminary in Kandy became the National Seminary of Our Lady of Lanka for the now independent Sri Lanka.

1956 to 2000

On 10 February 1986 Pope

John Paul II Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until Death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, his death in 2005. In his you ...

visited the seminary. On 16 December 1993

Mother Teresa Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu (born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, ; 26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997), better known as Mother Teresa or Saint Mother Teresa, was an Albanian-Indian Catholic Church, Roman Catholic nun, founder of the Missionaries of ...

visited the seminary.

Current day

The academic work of the seminary is delivered by the sister-institution Jnana Deepa, Institute of Philosophy and Theology, Pune, which is on the same campus. The seminary has 16 staff members who are all either

Diocesan In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associated ...

priests. It has three spiritual directors who oversee the spiritual dimension of the seminarians' lives. The house doctor, Manoj Durairaj, received the

Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice ''Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice'' ("For Church and Pope" in Latin) is a decoration of the Holy See. It is currently conferred for distinguished service to the Catholic Church by lay people and clergy. History The medal was established by Leo XII ...

. In 2015 the seminary celebrated 60 years in Pune."Ablaze ad Infinitum: 60 Years in Pune and Moving Ahead," S. Jayard, F. Gonsalves & VR George (eds), Papal Seminary, Pune, 2016

Rectors

* Rev Fr Bhausaheb Sansare SJ (3 December 2017) * Rev Fr Jose Thayil SJ (Jun 2010 – Dec 2017) * Rev Fr Pradeep Sequeira SJ * Rev Fr. Ornellas Coutinho SJ * Rev Fr Joe Mathias SJ * Rev Fr Michael Alosanai SJ * Rev Fr Joe Thadavanal SJ

Notable faculty

* Kurien Kunnumpuram * Francis Pereira *

Kuruvilla Pandikattu Kuruvilla Pandikattu Joseph, Society of Jesus, SJ (; born 28 November 1957) is an Indian Catholic priest and philosopher. He is Chair Professor, JRD Tata Foundation on Business Ethics at XLRI – Xavier School of Management, XLRI, Jamshedpur an ...

* Bishop Thomas Dabre

Notable alumni

Servant of God

* Msgr

Lawrence Puliyanath Lawrence Puliyanath, occasionally known as Lawrence of Edakochi (8 August 1898 – 20 February 1961), was a Catholic priest of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cochin, declared a Servant of God. He was born in Mundamveli, Kochi, Kerala, India, an ...

(

Roman Catholic Diocese of Cochin The Roman Catholic Diocese of Cochin () is a Roman Catholic Diocese in Kochi, Kerala, India. A constituent of the Latin Church, the diocese was established in 1557 after the domination of the Portuguese-speaking missionaries. The diocese is a ...

) *

Mar Varghese Payyappilly Palakkappilly Varghese Payyappilly was an Indian Syro-Malabar priest from Kerala and the founder of the congregation of Sisters of the Destitute. He was declared Venerable by Pope Francis on 14 April 2018. Family Kathanar was born as Kunjuvaru on 8 August ...

Cardinals

* Cardinal Moran Mor

Baselios Cleemis Baselios Cleemis (born 15 June 1959) is the current Major Archbishop-Catholicos of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. He was made a Cardinal (Catholic Church), cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012. At the time of his elevation, he was the you ...

(Major Archdiocese of Trivandrum) * Archbishop

Filipe Neri Cardinal Ferrão Filipe is a common first name in Portuguese-speaking countries. It is a Portuguese and Galician spelling of the name Philip (aka Phillip) (the name is spelled Felipe in Spanish and in archaic Portuguese orthography). Famous Filipes Royalty Ther ...

(Archdiocese of Goa and Daman) * Cardinal Mar

Joseph Parecattil Joseph Parecattil (1 April 1912 – 20 February 1987) was an Indian prelate of the Syro Malabar Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Ernakulam from 1956 to 1984, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1969. He was the first Cardinal fro ...

(Emeritus Archbishop of Ernakulam – Angamaly)

Archbishops

* Archbishop Sebastian Kallupura (Archdiocese of Patna) * Archbishop

Joseph Powathil Mar Joseph Powathil () (14 August 1930 – 18 March 2023) was an Indian prelate of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church. He was the Metropolitan Archbishop of the Archeparchy of Changanassery, serving from 1985 until 2007. He was also the first bi ...

(Emeritus Archbishop of Changanassery) * Archbishop Daniel Acharuparambil (Emeritus Archbishop of Verapoly)

Bishops

* Bishop Valerian D'Souza (Emeritus Bishop of Poona) * Bishop Christudas Rajappan (Auxiliary Bishop of Archdiocese of Trivandrum,Latin) * Bishop Kurien Valiakandathil (Bishop of Bhagalpur) * Bishop Stephen Athipozhiyil (Emeritus Bishop of Alleppy) * Bishop Alex Vadakumthala (Bishop of Kannur) * Bishop Sebastian Adayanthrath (Bishop of Mandya) * Bishop Maxwell Valentine Noronha (Emeritus Bishop of Calicut) * Bishop Antony Thannikot (Emeritus Auxiliary Bishop of Veraploy) * Bishop

Jacob Manathodath Jacob Manathodath (; born 22 February 1947) is a former Bishop of Palghat. Briefly he also served as the Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese of Ernakulam, India. Biography Jacob Manathodath was born on 22 February 1947 in Kodamthuruthu ...

(Emeritus Bishop of Palghat) * Bishop Michael Arattukulam (Emeritus Bishop of Alleppy) * Bishop Peter Michael Chenaparampil (Emeritus Bishop of Alleppy)

References

{{Authority control Christian seminaries and theological colleges in India 1893 establishments in India Educational institutions established in 1893