The college has traditionally been an important centre of scholarly study into Albanian literature and language.

Evangelism remained problematic but in 1854 the Office of the Vatican Missionary Bishops and Albanians opened a seminary in Shkodra for the southern Balkans, entrusted to the Italian Jesuits.

[1] In 1877 the Jesuits opened Shkodër Saverian College, first as a trade school and then as a classic liceum after the 1912 declaration of Albania's independence from the Ottoman Empire.

This was accompanied by itinerant missionary work, alongside cultural, religious, artistic, musical, and theatrical groups, and publication of the magazine Immaculate Conception.

The School of Higher Studies of Philosophy and Theology is a promoter of the Albanian language and of dialogue with the Orthodox Church and with Islam.