Original scientific paper
The Junior Seminary of the Diocese of Poreč-Pula in Kopar, 1880-1919
Stipan Trogrlić
Abstract
In 1918, due to a small number of enrolled candidates, the seminary in Kopar was closed. At the time, it was the only seminary in Istria. Because of a lack of priests, a number of parish seats were empty, thus the Istrian bishops considered a solution to the declining number of clergy one of their most important problems. They were in agreement that the opening of a junior seminary was the only way toward solving this pressing pastoral issue. Until 1880, when Bishop Ivan Glavina opened the seminary in Kopar, the attempts of several bishops of Poreč-Pula to accomplish the same had not resulted in lasting success. The students of the Kopar seminary had to attend an Italian gymnasium, which in the eyes of Italian liberals ensured that the future priests would be brought up in an Italian spirit and thereby enabled to carry out their role in raising Italian national consciousness, which for the liberals was more important than their pastoral or spiritual function. Because of this, during its 39 years of operation the seminary was the darling of the Italian liberals and a vital national institution. For the same reason the Croats of Istria viewed the seminary as a vehicle of italianization and disintegration of the Croatian national corpus in Istria. In this very tense national conflict neither the Italian nor the Croatian attitude was immune to extremely contradictory evaluations. Whether and to what degree the graduates of the seminary, who later became the priests of Istria, put their nationalism ahead of their pastoral work, thereby fulfilling the expectations of their co-nationals (liberals) and realizing the worst fears of the Croatians, is hard to determine. Indeed, very few priests whose education was influenced by the seminary at Kopar came into conflict with their Croatian flock. Since the major source of conflict was the promulgation of the Bishop’s decree concerning the question
of Old Slavonic and Croatian liturgy, and not the inflexibility of a particular priest, it can be freely concluded that the role of the seminary in national strife has been overblown.
Keywords
Church in Istria; Seminary at Kopar; Ivan Glavina; National Question; Italian Secondary School
Hrčak ID:
19062
URI
Publication date:
18.1.2008.
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