Sankt Georgen Graduate School of Philosophy and Theology (German: ''Philosophisch-Theologische Hochschule Sankt Georgen'') is a higher education

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college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offering ...

Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. The school offers a 10-semester Magister in Catholic Theology and a 6-semester Bachelor in Philosophy. Post-graduate students may earn the degrees of Licentiate (Lic. theol.), Doctorate (Dr. theol., Ph.D.), or Habilitation (Dr. theol. habil.). Additional interdisciplinary programs are offered as well.

Campus and Institutions

The campus, situated within a historic park in the

Sachsenhausen Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners ...

district of Frankfurt, contains the classroom building, the office building (''Lindenhaus''), the academic library, the college restaurant (''Mensa''), the major seminary, the college church, and the Jesuit community. The campus hosts as well two institutions founded by the

German Bishops' Conference The German Bishops' Conference (german: Deutsche Bischofskonferenz) is the episcopal conference of the bishops of the Roman Catholic dioceses in Germany. Members include diocesan bishops, coadjutors, auxiliary bishops, and diocesan administrato ...

: the "Institute for Global Church and Mission (IWM)" and an Institute for Christian-Muslim relations ("Cibedo"). Its library, with more than 12,000 volumes, stands out as the largest library for Christian-Muslim dialogue in Germany. The main college library, which incorporated the collections of various Jesuit libraries and holds nearly 500,000 volumes, is known for its rich collection of Jesuit-related literature. In the interdiocesan major seminary, 30 seminarians of several German dioceses, mainly of Limburg, Hamburg, Osnabrück, Hildesheim, are studying for the Roman Catholic priesthood. 20 post-graduate students, mostly priests, from all over the world are living in the same seminary, pursuing doctoral or licentiate programs.

History

The school was founded in 1926 by the

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as an academic seminary for training candidates to the priesthood, initially only for the

Diocese of Limburg The Diocese of Limburg (Latin: ''Dioecesis Limburgensis'') is a diocese of the Catholic Church in Germany. It belongs to the ecclesiastical province of Cologne, with metropolitan see being the Archdiocese of Cologne. Its territory encompasses ...

, but soon for other German dioceses as well. Until 1951 the school was exclusively an (inter-)diocesan seminary, led by Jesuits. From 1951 until 1975, the school included two parallel institutions: the "Philosophical-Theological Academy" for diocesan candidates and the "Theological Faculty S.J." for Jesuit students. In 1976, the school began admitting lay theology students (male and female), and these quickly formed the majority of students. In 1986, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, since 13 March 2013

Pope Francis Pope Francis ( la, Franciscus; it, Francesco; es, link=, Francisco; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 17 December 1936) is the head of the Catholic Church. He has been the bishop of Rome and sovereign of the Vatican City State since 13 March 2013. ...

, spent a few months at the Sankt Georgen PTH to consult with professors on a dissertation project, however he has not further pursued the project. The 1993 college church and the 2005 classroom building are both notable works of modern architecture. In 2009 the ''Institute for Global Church and Mission'' (IWM) (German: ''Institut für Weltkirche und Mission'') was founded. In 2010–2017, IWM students ran the Student Initiative Rahel, which organised the financing of

scholarship A scholarship is a form of financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, diversity and inclusion, athletic skill, and financial need. Scholarsh ...

s for

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young people in

Adigrat Adigrat (, ''ʿaddigrat'', also called ʿAddi Grat) is a city and separate woreda in Tigray Region of Ethiopia. It is located in the Misraqawi Zone at longitude and latitude , with an elevation of above sea level and below a high ridge to the we ...

, northern

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

Notable people

Faculty

Oswald von Nell-Breuning Oswald von Nell-Breuning (8 March 1890 – 21 August 1991) was a Roman Catholic theologian and sociologist. Born in Trier, Germany into an aristocratic family, Nell-Breuning was ordained in 1921 and appointed Professor of Ethics at the Sa ...

SJ (1890–1991) * Aloys Grillmeier SJ (1910–1998) *

Otto Semmelroth Otto is a masculine German given name and a surname. It originates as an Old High German short form (variants ''Audo'', '' Odo'', ''Udo'') of Germanic names beginning in ''aud-'', an element meaning "wealth, prosperity". The name is recorded f ...

SJ (1912–1979) *

Norbert Lohfink Norbert Lohfink SJ (born July 28, 1928 in Frankfurt am Main) is a member of the Jesuit Order, German Catholic priest and theologian . He is emeritus professor of exegesis of the Old Testament at the Philosophical-Theological College Sankt Georgen i ...

SJ (born 1928) *

Rupert Lay Rupert may refer to: People * Rupert (name), various people known by the given name or surname "Rupert" Places Canada *Rupert, Quebec, a village *Rupert Bay, a large bay located on the south-east shore of James Bay *Rupert River, Quebec *Rupert' ...

SJ (born 1929) *

Friedhelm Hengsbach Friedhelm Hengsbach is a professor emeritus for Christian social ethics. He was also director of the Oswald von Nell-Breuning Institute for Economic and Social Ethical Studies of the Jesuit Sankt Georgen Graduate School of Philosophy and Theology i ...

SJ (born 1937) *

Medard Kehl Medard () is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Lauterecken-Wolfstein. ...

SJ (born 1942) * Bruno Schüller SJ (1925−2007) *

Michael Sievernich Michael may refer to: People * Michael (given name), a given name * Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael Given name "Michael" * Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian an ...

SJ (born 1944) *

Jörg Splett Jörg or Joerg () is a German name, equivalent to George in English. * Jörg Bergmeister, German race car driver * Jörg Frischmann, German Paralympian athlete * Jörg Haider, Austrian politician * Jörg Andrees Elten (also Swami Satyananda), Germ ...

(born 1936)

Alumni

Stephan Ackermann Stephan Ackermann (born March 20, 1963) is a German bishop. He was elected by the Cathedral Chapter as Bishop of Trier in the Moselle area of Germany in 2009. Early life The son of Helmy and Hermann and the eldest of two children, Ackermann gr ...

(born 1963), Bishop of Trier (Germany) *

Karl Josef Becker Karl Josef Becker S.J. (18 April 1928 – 10 February 2015) was a German Catholic theologian and consultor for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith since 15 September 1977. He taught at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. Life ...

(1928–2015), Jesuit, theologian, cardinal *

Alfred Delp Alfred Delp (, 15 September 1907 – 2 February 1945) was a German Jesuit priest and philosopher of the German Resistance. A member of the inner Kreisau Circle resistance group, he is considered a significant figure in Catholic resistan ...

(1907–1945), Jesuit and philosopher of the German Resistance during the Second World War *

Farid Esack Farid Esack (born 1955 in Wynberg, Cape Town) is a South African Muslim scholar, writer, and political activist known for his opposition to apartheid, his appointment by Nelson Mandela as a gender equity commissioner, and his work for inter-r ...

(born 1959), South African Muslim scholar and political activist *

Luis Ladaria Ferrer Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer (born 19 April 1944) is a Spanish Jesuit, theologian and a cardinal of the Catholic Church. After a thirty-year career teaching theology, he joined the Roman Curia in 2004 as Secretary-General of the Internation ...

(born 1944), Jesuit, Archbishop, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith *

Jean-Claude Hollerich Jean-Claude Hollerich, S.J. (born 9 August 1958) is a Luxembourger prelate of the Catholic Church, who has served as the Archbishop of Luxembourg since 2011. He has been the president of the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European ...

(born 1958), Jesuit, Archbishop of Luxembourg * Wilhelm Kempf (1906–1982), Catholic theologian, Bishop of Limburg 1949–1981 *

Federico Lombardi Federico Lombardi, S.J. (born 29 August 1942) is an Italian Catholic priest and the former director of the Holy See Press Office. He succeeded Joaquín Navarro-Valls and was succeeded by Greg Burke. Lombardi also serves as the postulator for t ...

(born 1942), Italian Jesuit, former director of the Holy See Press Office * Juan Antonio Martínez Camino (born 1953), Jesuit, Auxiliary Bishop in Madrid * Blessed Johannes Prassek (1911–1943), priest opposing the Nazi regime, one of the Lübeck martyrs * Wolfgang Rösch (born 1959), priest, vicar general of Limburg (Germany) *

Jon Sobrino Jon Sobrino (born 1938) is a Jesuit Catholic priest and theologian, known mostly for his contributions to Latin American liberation theology. He received worldwide attention in 2007 when the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is ...

(born 1928), Jesuit and theologian (liberation theology) in El Salvador * Michael Wüstenberg (born 1954), Bishop of Aliwal (South Africa) * Lothar Zenetti (1926-2019), German priest and writer

References