Lentorama 2026: Hic es: aedificia Vaticani

Day 2: Pontifical Ethiopian College

The Pontifical Colleges in Rome are seminaries typically set up to train students from specific countries or regions to become priests (or, in some cases, train seminarians to become priests in the namesake country or region). These colleges are located wholly within Rome or in Rome but adjacent to the Vatican. With one exception.

The Ethiopian College, while established in 1919, has roots going back to the late 15th century. A group of Ethiopian monks made a pilgrimage to Rome and established enough of a community that Pope Sixtus IV gave the monks the use of St. Stephen of the Abyssinians chapel and another outlying building. The monks formed a monastery, which became a center for both seminary education and Ethiopian studies.

Pope Pius XI ordered the building of the current college in 1929, placing the building on he grounds of the Vatican Gardens.