Serbian Orthodox Theological Seminary of Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Prizren
Theological Seminary in Prizren, founded in 1871 in the house of its venerable founder Simeon Andrejevic Igumanov - uncle Sima Prizrenac, has operated at all times, not only as a nursery for educated Orthodox Serbs, but also as an important cultural and political center and pillar that helped the people survive. and preserves its faith, language and culture in one place, very difficult for life, such as Metohija.
The importance of the seminary has always been recognized by our state, but also by the people who selflessly helped it. It was a great consolation and joy for Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija to see young people who decided to dedicate their lives to God and family, because it gave them a basis to look with hope and joy to the future from Kosovo-Metohija, for Serbs always difficult and gray, present.
The seminary carried out its mission unhindered, with short interruptions during the wars, until 1999, when students and professors, due to the new situation in Kosovo and Metohija, were evacuated to Nis for security reasons and continued to work there. During that period, the seminary in Prizren served as a meeting place for Serbs from Podkaljaja who thought they were safe there due to the presence of German NATO soldiers.
On March 17, 2004, however, those same soldiers silently watched as a mob of terrorists set fire to the seminary and all Serb houses and churches in Prizren. To one! It seemed that when the seminary burned down completely, its mission in history ended with the act of criminals.
The will of God was different, though. With the blessing of the Holy Synod of Bishops, headed by another former student, professor and rector of the Prizren Theological Seminary, His Holiness Irinej, at the suggestion of the Bishop of Raska and Prizren Theodosius, after the longest interruption of work in its one-and-a-half-century history, on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on September 21, 2011, this school is resurrected and starts working again, testifying to the truth of the Resurrection of Christ.
In the beginning, only one was enrolled in the seminary, the first generation of the renovated school, which taught, worked and finished in the only renovated building, the historic one in which the seminary started working one hundred and forty years before. With each succeeding generation, new professors came and other buildings were renovated one after another.
The tradition of commemorating Tsar Dusan on the first day of the new school year was immediately renewed in his endowment near Prizren, the monastery of the Holy Archangels, where the first class in the History of the Serbian Church is held for newly enrolled first-graders.
With the support and help of the Russian Orthodox Church, especially the Sretenje Monastery, the European Commission, the Government of the Republic of Serbia, the Kingdom of Norway and many other friends from all over the world, the renovation of the Prizren seminary, school year 2015/16. when the fifth generation of students was admitted, the renovation of the entire complex of the Prizren seminary was completed. A new library, reading room, event hall, dining room and kitchen, student rooms, gym...