The Seminary of Quebec (French: Séminaire de Québec) is a Roman Catholic community of priests in Quebec City founded by Bishop François de Laval, the first bishop of New France in 1663.[1]
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The Séminaire de Québec is a Society of diocesan priests founded on March 26, 1663 by Bishop François de Laval, first bishop of New France, in order to sustain the mission of the Church in North America. In 1665, he joined this community to that of the Seminary of Foreign Missions of Paris under the name of the Seminary of Foreign Missions of Quebec, hence the old acronym still in use today: SME.
The first role of the Séminaire de Québec was to prepare young men to the priesthood, so as to assure the ministry in the parishes and the various missions which reached as far as Louisiana. The foundation of the Seminary therefore coincides with that of the Major Seminary, training center for future priests.
In 1668, on a request from Colbert, Louis XIV's top minister, who wished the aboriginals to be gallicized, Bishop de Laval entrusted his Seminary to open its doors to young Indians and to the children of the first settlers who had dispositions for studies and eventually the priesthood. That was the foundation of the Minor Seminary (Petit Séminaire de Québec).
Until the English conquest in 1760, the Minor Seminary was a boarding school for students who took their classes at the Jesuits' College located on the site of the present City Hall. After the conquest, the suppression of the Jesuits' College convinced the directors of the Seminary to take over. From that moment on, the Minor Seminary became a full fledged teaching institution, a college, open to all young boys wishing to start on a course of studies. And thanks to the high level of the teaching, in 1852, the Seminary obtained a Royal Charter from Queen Victoria and accepted to found Laval University, the first Catholic and French University in North America. Laval University and the Minor Seminary no longer have any legal ties with the Quebec Seminary. The Seminary entrusted the Université Laval to a new corporation in 1970 and the same was done with the Petit Séminaire de Québec in 1987.
The services of the Séminaire de Québec are today: the Major Seminary, a Vocation Center, a new Diocesan Minor Seminary, the Catholic Animation Center at Laval University, the ongoing training of priests and other pastoral animators, Service in paristhes and in teaching theology; those are the main services of the Séminaire de Québec.
If the Séminaire de Québec was able to exercise such an influence and to fulfill its various educational missions, it was thanks to the visionary mind of its founder, Bishop François de Laval. He had purchased from the associates (or members or shareholders) of the Compagnie des 100 Associés or Compagnie de la Nouvelle-France a vast territory covered with lakes and forests to the north east of the City of Quebec and known today as the Beaupré Seigneury. This patrimony, bequeathed to the Séminaire de Québec, has allowed the latter to carry on the work of its founder.
Nowadays, since 1987 the Petit Séminaire de Québec is a private Roman Catholic secondary school separated from the Séminaire de Québec. Many French-Canadian clergy of the 18th and 19th century, as well as innumerable academics, went through the Petit Séminaire before higher education became widely accessible. Until 1970, the Superior of the Seminary was also the Rector of Université Laval, which was originally an offshoot of it.
The historical site of the Séminaire de Québec in Old Quebec includes a vast number of buildings, some of which date back to the 17th century and are witnesses of the French occupation, while the others were constructed anywhere from the 18th to the 20th century. The ensemble is made up of two groups of buildings: the Vieux-Séminaire constructed under the model of 17th century French colleges, and the second group of buildings that have been added over the years to meet the needs of Laval University, the Grand Séminaire and the Petit Séminaire, whose most important buildings are the Camille-Roy Building and the Jean-Olivier-Briand Building. The Camille-Roy Building has several pinnacles on which continuously fly the flag of the coat of arms of founder of the Séminaire de Québec, Bishop François de Laval, and the Jean-Olivier-Briand Building houses the priests’ residence and the Grand Séminaire.
The Seminary was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1929.[2]
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