Jesuit College in Minsk
Over time, the monastery estate was expanded and enlarged until the suppression of the Jesuits in 1773, encompassing almost the entire quarter in the southeast part of High Market [pl].
However, the Jesuit church has survived to the present day, serving as the cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Minsk–Mohilev, along with part of one of the buildings, which, after modernization, houses a music high school.
One of the buildings of the former Jesuit college (7 Swabody Square) now houses the Republican Gymnasium-College at the Belarusian State Academy of Music.
[4] Other sources indicate the year 1654 when Prince Hieronim Władysław Sanguszko [pl], the Bishop of Smolensk, granted the Minsk Jesuits a permanent fund.
They acquired a brick mansion from Jegor Heger at the corner of Kojdanowska Street and High Martek, which the monks designated as their headquarters.
[5] In the early period of their activities in Minsk, their community had the status of a mission dependent on the Jesuit college in Nyasvizh.
[6] In 1686, the Jesuits obtained the status of residents, and in 1714, they were granted a college, which marked the high level of education they provided.
On 16 April 1710, Bishop Konstanty Kazimierz Brzostowski of Vilnius dedicated the church under the invocation of Jesus, Virgin Mary, and Saint Barbara.
During this time, rhetoric, poetry, syntax, grammar, theology, Hebrew language, ethics, mathematics, physics, logic, and metaphysics were taught at the Jesuit college.
[9] After 1798, when the Roman Catholic Diocese of Minsk was established, a three-story building was erected within the college premises, at the height of the cathedral apse, for the needs of the consistory.
In 1951, the cathedral was converted into a sports complex for the Spartak society: the church towers were dismantled, a new facade was added to the cathedral in the style of Stalinist classicism, the figurative attic above the apse was destroyed, as well as the domes above the side chapels; the interior of the church was divided into several floors by ceilings.
After the founder's death, his heirs reduced the endowment to 7,000 złoty and left the tenement to the Jesuits, so in the second half of the 17th century, due to lack of financial resources, only two monks operated in Minsk.
In 1682, the voivode of Troki, Cyprian Brzostowski, with his wife Rachel from the Dunin-Rajecki family, bequeathed 50,000 złoty to the Minsk Jesuits on the Niżyce estate.
A year later, Marcjan Ogiński, the Lithuanian chancellor, with his wife Izabela from the Hlebowicz family, increased the fund by another 50,000 złoty on the dowry estates of Ogińska – Hliwina and Upierowicze.
[12] After Ogiński's death, the monks became embroiled in a legal battle with the founders' heirs, who demanded the return of the granted estates.
The Smolensk canon Mikołaj Przeradowski donated 500 ducats for the construction of the altar of St. Ignatius of Loyola and pipe organs, and also gave the monks a wooden sculpture of the Virgin Mary.
In 1732, the Furs family bequeathed the Jesuits a farmstead beyond Tatarska Street, covering an area of 5 voloks (approximately 83.98 hectares), called Ludimont by the monks, i.e., a place of entertainment, and designated for the recreation of young people.
[6] Before the dissolution of the order in 1773, the Minsk Jesuits owned 54 estates in the villages of Hać, Hliwin, Upierowicze, Pruszkowicze, Ślepianka, and Usa.
[13] The architectural layout of the Jesuit college was characteristic of the flourishing Minsk Baroque style during the period from the mid-17th to the early 18th century.
Elements of the complex associated with monastic life had a simple, austere shape, contrasting with the lofty facade of the church.
[14] The residence of the Minsk Jesuits was located in a manor house purchased from the townsman Jegor Heger, surrounded by high stone walls with several gates.
Internal stairs led to the upper floor, where there was a gallery with ornate turned balusters, a refectory, and living quarters.
[8] The bell tower, erected in the late Baroque style in 1750 in front of the Jesuit residence, to the right of the church, completed the composition of the college complex.
Among the members of the college were Antoni Brzostowski, Michał and Karol Korycki, Józef Baka, and the rector Rudolf Rudomina.
[20] Seventeen of them remained in Minsk as secular priests and taught at the transformed sub-collegiate schools, administered from 1773 to 1792 by the Commission of National Education.
[21] Initially, the Jesuits conducted educational activities in a chapel adapted for this purpose, located in Heger's mansion.
