Page:Uniate Eastern Churches.pdf/182

152 Catholic faith; that they should eventually go back to the Levant as missionaries to their countrymen. The Bull of erection is dated January 13, 1577. The college was built by the architect James della Porta. It is a handsome building, of the usual type of sixteenth-century Roman work, in the Via Babuino. By the side of the college is the Church of St Athanasius, the "Greek" church in Rome, where the Byzantine rite is celebrated, served by the students of the college. The church was finished in 1581. Certain changes in the buildings have been made at later dates. Gregory XIII endowed the college generously; he appointed a commission of five Cardinals as its protectors; among these were Sirleto and Santoro. Santoro became the special protector and head of the establishment. He appointed the rectors and looked after its interests for twenty-five years.

One of the chief difficulties of the college has been the constant change of rectors, and even of the manner of its direction. The first rector was a Latin regular of the Crociati order, Nicholas Stridonio; then came secular priests, among them a Scotchman, even laymen. Cardinal Santoro drew up the rule in 1583, and ordered that it should be read aloud in the refectory once a month. In 1591 the direction was given to the Jesuits. Under them it flourished, and the number of students grew steadily. But in 1602, when Santoro died, Cardinal Giustiniani was made Protector. He was a Greek of Chios. He made all kinds of changes in the arrangements of the college, so that the Jesuits quarrelled with him and retired in 1604. There was again a period of continual changes in the direction; the Dominicans held the office for a time, then secular priests and a layman. In 1622 the Jesuits came back. Soon after this Ruthenian students were admitted as well as Greeks, so that, till the reform of Leo XIII, it was the "Collegium Græco-Ruthenum." Then things went badly again. There were constant disorders; the Greeks had the reputation of being the most difficult students to manage in all Rome; by 1693 there were only eighteen students in residence, and there was a question of closing the college. Later Latins from the Greek islands were admitted; so that the college began to change its nature. It was becoming a school for Latin missionaries in the Levant. Italo-Greeks and Albanians were also admitted; the number of Greeks from the