Misjonarze-profesorowie Seminarium Duchownego wŻytomierzu 1798-1842

In 1798 on the territories of the Russian partition of Poland, in co-operation with the Holy See, a new organisation of the structure of the Roman-Catholic Church was introduced. The Łuck-Żytomierz diocese was established that had three diocesan seminaries, the one in Żytomierz being run by the Congregation of Saint Vincent de Paul's Missionaries. The Missionary Priests were brought to Żytomierz by Bishop K. Cieciszowski in 1785. In the studied period there were 28 professors in the seminary. They came mainly from the north-west guberniyas of the Russian Empire, from the class of paupered nobility. The leading group of the teaching staff was constituted by a group of lecturers below the age of 30. Most professors (79%) started performing their duties with only seminary education. 14% had a higher education. Half of the professors, to a certain degree had experience from the seminary where they carried on their formation, or from other institutions educating the clergy that were run by missionaries. The seminary professors' duty range was divided; it concerned maintaining the seminary, educating and teaching the alumni. The division of the lectured subjects was done at the beginning of the school year that began on 1 September. Besides the range of duties closely connected with running the institution, sometimes the missionaries undertook pastoral duties, which also was done at the cost of some preparations to the seminary classes and conducting them. An indirect influence on the standard of the classes prepared by the professors was exerted not only by their additional duties but also by the number of the lecturers that often changed. In the years 1806-1812 there were not enough lecturers in the seminary, but in the years 1813-1825 their number considerably exceeded the amount of initially employed professors (3). In 1818 the number of professors-missionaries reached its culminating point (7professors). In the years 1828-1842 the number of lecturers ranged from 1 to 3 professors. When comparing the numbers of the alumni and professors of the Żytomierz seminary it seems that the number of the missionaries-professors depended on the number of seminarists who were there at the moment. The financial situation of the teaching staff depended on the amount of money the seminary received and the annual interests from the sums invested in real estates. The missionaries received one sum for all the lecturers of the seminary, that was paid by the cathedral curate. The salary, amounting to 375 rubels, was designed for three professors, which meant 125 rubels for one person. When the lecturers did not meet their obligations, employing new people was automatically connected with lowering the annual salary. The missionaries had to terminate their work at the Żytomierz seminary because of Nicholas I's ukase of 8 December 1842 on disbanding the Congregation of Missionaries in Russia. The work of the Missionary Priests in the Żytomierz diocesan seminary played one of the main roles in the formation of the Łuck-Żytomierz diocese clergy in the 19th century.