Blackfriars, Oxford
Blackfriars is located in central Oxford on St Giles', between the Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies and St Cross College.
History
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The Dominicans arrived in Oxford on 15 August 1221, at the instruction of a General Chapter meeting headed by Saint Dominic himself, little more than a week after the friar's death. As such, the hall is heir to the oldest tradition of teaching in Oxford, a tradition that precedes both the aularian houses that would characterise the next century and the collegiate houses that would characterise the rest of the University of Oxford's history. In 1236 they established a new and extensive priory in the St. Ebbes district.
Like all the monastic houses in Oxford, Blackfriars came into rapid and repeated conflict with the university authorities. With the Reformation, all monastic houses, including Blackfriars, were suppressed. The Dominicans did not return to Oxford for some 400 years, until 1921 when Blackfriars was refounded by Bede Jarrett as a religious house. The original priory building was designed by Edward Doran Webb and completed in 1929. The Dominican studium at Blackfriars had a close relationship with the university, culminating in the establishment of Blackfriars as a permanent private hall in 1994.
Blackfriars' Studium
Blackfriars offers those preparing for the Catholic priesthood the Baccalaureate in Sacred Theology (STB) granted by the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum in Rome. It is also possible for lay men and women to begin the Angelicum's STB programme by studying in the Blackfriars Studium and to conclude the programme with at least a year's full-time study at the Angelicum.
Notable Friars
- Malcolm McMahon, Archbishop of Liverpool, former Prior.
- Aidan Nichols, first John Paul II Memorial Visiting Lecturer at the University of Oxford
- Brian Davies - philosopher
- Richard Finn
- Timothy Radcliffe - former Prior and sometime Master of the Order of Preachers.
- Fergus Kerr - former Prior.