Karl Franzens University, Graz

AUSTRIA, 1985, 4th centenary of the University, Scott 1299

The Jesuit college of Graz, located in the capital of the Province of Steiermark, been founded in 1578, was already possessed of a theological and philosophical school. On 1 January 1585 by joint efforts of the pope, emperor, and Archduke Karl II of Inner Austria it was raised to the status of a University. The first scholastic year began in 1586. This institution of Graz was the Jesuits' center of activity in their labors for the reclaiming of Steiermark to Catholicity. The Jesuits ran the University until the Society was suppressed in 1773, when the state assumed its management, though most of the imperial officials who administrated the university and its library were former Jesuits. The Jesuit collection was combined with those of other colleges, but about 2,500 books contained in the University Library of Graz still bear the characteristic shelf marks of the Jesuits. In 1782, it was converted into a lyceum. In 1827, the lyceum was reconverted into a university by Emperor Francis and called Karl Franzens University of Graz after its two founders. More

The Canisianum, Innsbruck

USA, 2006, a personalized stamp featuring the signature tower of the Canisianum
and the mountains north of Innsbruck, the Nordkette.

In 2006 Richard Wall commissioned a personalized stamp on behalf of the American alumni of the Jesuit school in Innsbruck, the Canisianum, a seminary named in honor of St. Peter Canisius. The National Socialists forced the school to close in 1938 and it did not reopen until 1945. Its roots go back to 1569 when the Nikolaihaus, founded by Fr. Nikolaus de Lanoy, SJ, served as a residence for poor students at the Jesuit College. When Kaiser Leopold I founded the University of Innsbruck in 1669, it became a residence for theology students. Even after the Suppression it continued under the leadership of a former Jesuit. In 1857 the restored Catholic Theological Faculty was entrusted to the Jesuits and the Nikolaihaus once more became a residence for theological students. In 1910/11 it achieved independence and moved to new quarters. Since 2006 the Collegium Canisianum has received a new mission as an International Theological College for postgraduate, specialist and continuing education purposes. Also featured on the stamp is the motto of the school: Cor Unum et Anima Una (One Heart and One Soul). More

The Aloisianum, Linz

 
AUSTRIA, personalized stamp, Scott 1943
AUSTRIA, 2009, personalized stamp on Stamp Day
both stamps show Maximilian's Church and the Freinberg tower of St. Aloysius Jesuit College

In Austria as elsewhere one can order stamps, valid for regular postal service, with personally chosen images and text. The personalized stamps above show St. Aloysius Jesuit College (Jesuitenkollegium Aloisianum) on the Freinberg near Linz, Austria. You can see Maximilian's Church (Maximilianskirchlein) and the Freinberg tower which houses part of the school. Archduke Maximilian of the House of Habsburg-Este, Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, donated the church and the tower to the Jesuits of the Austrian province in 1837. It was the first residence of Austrian Jesuits after their readmission into Austria and was used as a philosophate for Jesuit scholastics until the Revolution of 1848.

Beginning in 1851 the Jesuits ran a minor seminary here to encourage clerical and missionary vocations. The school outgrew the tower and the same Archduke Maximilian soon had a large boarding school built, which can be discerned to the right of the tower. The school closed in 1897 with the founding of the Petrinum, a diocesan seminary. It reopened in 1912 as the Collegium Aloysianum, but was adversely affected by the World War, the use of the building as a military hospital, and the economic and social problems following the war. In spite of that, it was in some ways the Golden Age of the school. In the 1920s and 1930s large numbers graduated and chose the clerical life or joined religious communities. About 50 joined the Jesuits, and many of these went to the Jesuits missions in China and Brazil. The school was closed by the National Socialists in 1938, but was returned to the Jesuits in 1946 and in 1950 opened as a high school for the third time. Today, after many changes in structure, it is a private Catholic school dedicated to Christian education, but without Jesuit teachers.

1976, Meter stamp from the Aloysianum

St. Ignatius Church, Linz 

  
AUSTRIA, 2006, a special show cancel, featuring the Old Cathedral or St. Ignatius Church, one time a Jesuit Church
AUSTRIA, 2007, on a postal card honoring the Lentos Art Museum both stamp and cancel show the twin towers of St. Ignatius Church

The Old Cathedral in the Town Hall District of Linz, the capital of Upper Austria, was originally a Jesuit church. It was called St. Ignatius Church until 1909 when the new Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception was finished; since then has been known as the Old Cathedral. St. Ignatius Church was built between 1669 and 1678 according to drawings by the Italian architect Pietro Francesco Carlone. From the Suppression of the Jesuits in 1773 until 1785 when the Diocese of Linz was established the church remained empty. Ernest Johann Nepomuk Graf von Herberstein, the first bishop of the new diocese of Linz, chose the Church of St. Ignatius as his cathedral, instead of the town parish church, which had been earmarked for this purpose. It served as the cathedral of Linz from 1785 to 1909, when it was return to the Jesuit order. It is still the largest Baroque church in the city. It features "Bruckner Organ" adapted especially according to the wishes of Anton Bruckner, who was cathedral organist here from 1855 to 1868. More

  
AUSTRIA, 2008, a personalized stamp features Jakob Alt's painting of the main square of Linz (1839)
with the twin towers of St. Ignatius Church in the distant center
AUSTRIA, 2008, a personalized stamp for Stamp Day 14 May 2008, showing the same towers in the distance.

  
AUSTRIA, 2009, to the left a personalized stamp featuring St. Ignatius Church and the Trinity Column in Linz's Main Square and
in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Linz Philatelic Association
AUSTRIA, 2009, personalized stamp marking 100 years since Jesuits have returned to the Old Cathedral

 
AUSTRIA, 2009, personalized stamp marking the new equipment for the Pöstlingberg railway up the landmark mountain of Linz and special cancel

  
AUSTRIA, 2009, a postal card showing the twin towers of St. Ignatius more clearly and the Trinity Column.
The imprint on the card and the special cancel to the right commemorate both the Philatelic Association anniversary
and the naming of Linz by the European Union as a European Capital of Culture for the year 2009.

  
AUSTRIA, 2009, Religious art in Austria showing the Baroque baptismal font in the Old Cathedral, Linz and its FDI cancel

The Parish Church, Linz

AUSTRIA, a personalized stamp in honor of stamp day 4 August 2008
featuring the Parish church of Linz, and in the background the towers of St. Ignatius Church

This personalized stamp shows the Stadtpfarrkirche or the town's parish church built in the 13th century, just a block away from the Church of St. Ignatius (the Old Cathedral). When the first two Jesuits, one of them Fr. Georg Scherer, SJ, arrived in Linz in the year 1600, they ran their ministry from this church. Until the Church of St. Ignatius was finished in 1679 there was a connecting passageway between the Jesuit college and the parish church. But even after St. Ignatius Church was completed the Jesuits continued to work in the parish church for more than a century until the Suppression in 1773.

The Jesuits arrived in Steyr in upper Austria in 1632 when Kaiser Ferdinand II granted them 11 houses. At first they worked in the old civil hospital church (at the lower left of the stamp). In 1634 they opened a college (gymnasium), and in 1635 built St. Michael Church (upper right of stamp). A few years before the suppression the church was redone in baroque style and a fresco of three archangels was painted on the front of the church at the top. After the Suppression (1773) the church became a parish church, and when the Jesuits returned to Steyr in 1865, they were given the former Dominican Church, the Marienkirche, just a few minutes from St. Michael's.

Kollegium Kalksburg, Vienna

1988-1991, Meter stamps for Kollegium Kalsburg, a Jesuit secondary school in Vienna. More

St. Barbara Church, Vienna

 
UKRAINE, 2005, Ukrainian Churches outside of Ukraine, stamp and label, Scott 617
AUSTRIA, Christmas 2007. The icon of the Birth of Christ is from the Church of St. Barbara, Scott 2127

In 1773, after the Suppression of the Jesuits, the Church of St. Barbara in Vienna, Austria was given to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church by Empress Maria Theresa. Prior to that time it was run by the Jesuits along with the adjoining St. Barbara residence for students at the Jesuit University. The Jesuits arrived in Vienna in 1551 and in 1554 moved into the Carmel Cloister Am Hof. Their college opened in 1560 and St. Stanislaus Kostka, SJ attended the school four years later. St. Barbara was patroness of the boarding students, the school sodality, and figured in a significant vision of St. Stanislaus. In 1654 a new boarding school was erected adjacent to St. Barbara Church in the Inner City just a block or so northeast of the Jesuitenkirche and the old university. The facade of the Church shown on the stamp is how it was renewed in 1852; the label shows the altarpiece of the church with St. Barbara and the features of the Empress Maria Theresa. More

  
UKRAINE, FDI cancel featuring angel, issued at Kiev
UKRAINE, FDI cancel featuring altarpiece of St. Barbara Church
AUSTRIA, FDI special show cancel featuring altarpiece of St. Barbara Church

The Theresianum Academy, Vienna

AUSTRIA, 1996, the 250th anniversary of the Theresianum, Scott 1695

On February 24, 1746 Empress Maria Theresa arranged to transfer her imperial summer residence, the Favorita, to the Society of Jesus for the establishment of an elite school for the education of the children of nobles — the Theresianum. She was the school's founder and under her patronage its economic sponsorship was secured and its curriculum was established. The Jesuits introduced a new system including Mathematics, History, Architecture, Geography, Political Science, Modern Languages, as well as Dancing, Horseback Riding and Fencing. Its graduates were destined for the diplomatic corps or other public service. Such a school was also called a knight academy (Ritterakademie). The Jesuits ran it until the Suppression in 1773; the faculty included Jesuit priests: Johann Nepomuk Cosmas Michael Denis, George Pray, and Franz Xavier Freiherr von Wulfen. After the Suppression some former Jesuits continued to teach there. It was dissolved by Joseph II, but reestablished in 1797 by Emperor Franz II. As it celebrated its 250th anniversary in 1996, the school had over 600 students.

AUSTRIA, 1996, FDI cancel for the 250th anniversary of the Theresianum

The University Church, Vienna

  
AUSTRIA, 1973, the centenary of a worldwide meteorological association with the church facade on the right, Scott 950
The photograph in the center shows the church facade with the Academy to the left.
AUSTRIA, 1964, the Vienna International Philatelic Exhibition (WIPA 1965) issue showed views of Vienna including one to the East
showing the towers of the University Church between the dome of St. Peter and the church and spire of St. Stephen, Scott B308

The central feature of the above 1973 stamp, based on a painting by Bernardo Bellotto, called Canaletto (1720-90), is the facade of the old university at Dr. Ignaz Seipel Place. It had been the seat of the Academy of Sciences since 1857. To its right is the baroque Jesuit University church dating from 1630, which the Jesuits left at the time of the Suppression. The Jesuits had been in Vienna since 1551. In 1623 they integrated their college into the University of Vienna (founded in 1365) and took over the philosophy and theology faculties. Part of their reconstruction of buildings at this time was to erect the University church in place of the former chapel. The Emperor broke ground for college and church the following year, and the church was dedicated to Saints Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier who had recently been canonized. In 1703 it was remodeled by Br. Andrea Pozzo, SJ and dedicated to the Assumption of Mary. The state took it over at the time of the Suppression and has recently renovated it. More - More

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