Wydział Teologii Katolickiej Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego w latach 1918-1945

Abstract

The above four papers embrace the whole period of 300 years of academic theology in Wrocław. The occasion for their publication is the 300-th anniversary of the Faculty of Theology in Wrocław. The beginnings of the Faculty may be traced to the Leopold’s Academy (starting from the year 1702) and this situation was continued up to the end of the Second World War, that is to the 1945: the Faculty was functioning as part of the Wrocław University for 243 years. The author of the first paper, Fr. Antoni Kiełbasa, describes the first attempts to found a university in the city of Wrocław, then goes to the creation of the Leopold’s Academy and to the continuation of this academic institution up to the year of 1811 when it was incorporated to the University of Viadrina in the Frankfurt am Oder and thus a new body – the University of Wrocław – began its existence. Mieczysław Pater, the author of the second paper, shows the history of the Faculty of the Catholic Theology and the Faculty of the Protestant Theology at the University of Wroclaw in period 1811-1918. He portrays some famous theologians of these times and some Noble prize winners from the Catholic Theological Faculty. In the third article Teresa Kulak describes the Faculty in times of complex historical processes during the years 1918-1945. In those years Germany saw the birth of the Nazi ideology, and the Faculty experienced numerous conflicts from this reason. The last of this series is the paper of Fr. Ignacy Dec who shows the Wroclaw academic theology after the Second World War. First some attempts to reactivate the presence of the theology in the post-war University are described. Later the history of an independent institution – the Pontifical Theological Faculty is exposed, together with the structure and the achievements of the present form of existence of the Faculty. The particulars of different efforts undertaken lately to incorporate the Pontifical Faculty of Theology in the body of the University of Wrocław end the whole presentation.