Our History

500 YEARS OF HISTORY

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Saint Ignatius of Loyola laid the foundations of the Pontifical Gregorian University, establishing, in 1551, a school of grammar, humanity and Christian doctrine, free, called for many centuries the Roman College. In 1552 Giulio III granted to the General Superior, or, by license from this date, to anyone of the future Supervisors or Rectors of the Colleges, the faculty and the license to confer academic degrees to the Jesuit students of the Collegio Romano

1551
 
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Paul IV in 1556, first year of his pontificate orally renewed the same faculty and license for all students, without leaving any written document about it because of his death. His successor, Pius V, in the absence of any doubt about the concession already granted, in the same year 1566 decreed that the faculties granted acquire full force and be written down by extending its validity to the date of the concession of his predecessor

1556
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But the "founder and protector" of the Gregorian University is considered Gregory XIII, who erected from the foundations a new seat of the Roman College, solemnly inaugurated in 1584 and increased it with benefits and privileges, extending them to any college of studies of the Society of Jesus, in which philosophy and theology studies were cultivated

1584
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The same privileges, in 1607, were again confirmed and sanctioned by Paul V

1607
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For three centuries the professors of the Society of Jesus conducted the Roman College with great merits and wide recognition. In 1773, with the suppression of the Society of Jesus by Clement XIV, the Apostolic See decided to entrust the Roman College to the diocesan clergy. The Society of Jesus was restored in 1814 by Pius VII, the Roman College was not returned to the Society of Jesus except in the year 1824, a time in which Leo XII entrusted it to the Society of Jesus and generously renewed the granting of all the rights and privileges that before the suppression they had been granted to the College

1773-1824
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In 1870 the schools of letters and in 1873 also the schools of philosophy and theology were expelled by the civil authorities from the headquarters of the Collegio Romano, but the College continued to exercise its activities in the headquarters of the Palazzo Borromeo (today College of San Roberto Bellarmino).

1870
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Pius IX, who publicly complained about the requisition in bitter words, benignly in the same year 1873 ordered that our university, instead of Collegio Romano, officially take the name of Pontifical Gregorian University

1873
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In the last century, both for the number of students and for the increasing variety of schools, institutes and faculties, the Pontifical Gregorian University required a wider and more dignified seat which, by the will of Pius XI, erected near the Colle del Quirinale in Piazza della Pilotta, was solemnly inaugurated on 6 November 1930 and was expressly recognized a particular status in the Lateran Pacts

1930
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Subsequently, Pius XI himself "... ut vera, perfecta plenaeque ad temporum necessitates accommodata stud omnium ecclesiasticorum Universitas evadat" ordered and decreed that the Pontifical Biblical Institute and the Pontifical Oriental Institute be associated with our University, so as to constitute a single Pontifical University of ecclesiastical studies, providing however that both the Institutes, the Biblical and the Oriental, were autonomous from the juridical point of view

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Since 1993, however, by order of John Paul II, the Grand Chancellor of the Pontifical Oriental Institute has been the Prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches

1993
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In our day Benedict XVI, in his address given at the University building on November 3, 2006 again confirmed the entrustment of the Gregorian University to the Society of Jesus by the Apostolic See and the primary place it must have in the priorities of the Society of Jesus, as an institution of great importance for the universal Church and the particular Churches

2006