A visit to the largest church-owned college in Poland, the Polish College of Theology and Humanities (PCTH), reveals why the school can boast of its recent successes.
A visit to the largest church-owned college in Poland, the Polish College of Theology and Humanities (PCTH), reveals why the school can boast of its recent successes.
“Perhaps we can be called a small school because we only had 1,562 students in the just concluded academic year. But, it appears that we are the largest church-operated school in Poland,” says Dr. Bernard Kozirog, principal of the college. “We are a Seventh-day Adventist college and are making a difference in the country’s educational map.”
The anticipated enrollment of 1,600 for the next academic year, commencing October 1, will guarantee the college’s standing as a growing institution with prospects for even further expansion. This is a great accomplishment for a school that started in 1926 as a theological high school called the Polish Spiritual Seminary.
Recently, the college faculty and administration offices moved to a renovated country palace, Zarybie, built and owned between the wars by a nobleman, Janusz Regulski. In 1959, when the Adventist seminary relocated to Podkowa Lesna from Bielsko Biala, the palace became its main school building.
The Zarybie, palace is also well known to many outside Podkowa Lesna, a garden-town 30 kilometers west of Warsaw. Built in the 1920s, the palace had become a hideout to members of the country’s intelligentsia, as well as soldiers and commanders of Poland’s resistance movement during the 1939 to 1945 war. “Your untypical guests found protection here,” said Dr. Stanislaw Dabrowski, a former president of the Adventist church in Poland, now one of the professors. “It was a hideout for underground soldiers. Janusz Regulski was participating in saving people from Warsaw who were moved to a nearby Pruszkow camp. During the Warsaw Uprising, the palace was a hiding place for the country’s national treasures moved secretly from the city.”
Today, Professor Kozirog can proudly escort visitors through a facility that now also houses a 40,000-volume modern high-tech library and a museum of geology, the first such facility in Poland dedicated to the study of creationism.
Most of the students, perhaps as many as 90 percent, are not members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Professor Kozirog says they come to PCTH because they find a friendly atmosphere, good teachers and a place where they can study the Bible. Though regarded as mostly Roman Catholic, Poland’s young people receive a largely secular upbringing. But in Podkowa Lesna many have an encounter with the Bible and Christian values.
Most of the faculty comes from the church’s ranks, though several of the lecturers in the area of general studies are recruited from Poland’s other colleges or universities. However, all theological courses are taught by church theologians, Kozirog explains.
“We see ourselves as a school for everyone, but where our students are given the best of Adventist education. When they go to their communities during the school year, or after graduation, they carry our philosophy and the Adventist way of life. Many join our church,” Professor Kozirog explains.
Reviewing the current enrollment trend, Kozirog and the school’s administration noted that for the first time in the school’s 80 years as an academic center, the Faculty of Biblical Studies will have more applicants who are not members of the Adventist Church. “This makes us very happy. It indicates that our theological curriculum has something special to offer,” he adds.
“We need new ministers in Poland. And in the last two years we were able to employ several in all three administrative areas of our church in Poland. What is taking place at the college offers hope for the years to come,” says Pastor Pawel Lazar, president of the church in Poland. “We will need two or three new ministers every year.”
The school’s Faculty of Tourism of Biblical Lands is very popular, with more than 800 enrolled in the last academic year. Kozirog explains that the tourism course was only added after thorough research, and Poland’s tourist office found there are many people who are interested in visiting the countries of popular pilgrimages, including Italy and Israel, as well as the Middle East. Such interest was increased after Poland’s entrance into the European Union.
“True to our philosophy and practice, our college elevates the Bible wherever we can. Students have daily contact with the Word of God, many for the first time in their lives. Besides, our lecturers have scores of opportunities to have conversations, even direct Bible studies, outside of the classroom. And, because of the nature of some classes, the students use books by Ellen G. White, such as Patriarchs and Prophets, Prophets and Kings, and the Desire of Ages, as part of their studies. Such is our philosophy in practice,” Kozirog explains. [ANN, July 27, 2004]
The college, which according to Kozirog is now the largest Adventist institution of higher learning in Europe, partners with privately and publicly owned schools that provide facilities, advertising, local management and some teaching staff. The college operates five satellite campuses, or “institutes,” throughout Poland.
In the last two years, the college, which has expanded to offer several degrees, including theology and religious education, as well as Tourism of the Biblical Lands and Theology of Health Promotion, has seen its students accepted for further studies in 35 Polish universities. “I just received information from two of our graduates who were accepted to continue their education at La Sorbonne [in Paris],” Kozirog says. He adds that the school does not receive church subsidies, is self-funded and enjoys financial success, something that other Adventist schools could envy.
Lazar also welcomes the financial sustainability of the college. “I am seeing this situation in a very positive light. The educational marketplace in Poland is getting condensed, but we are able to maintain our growth. The influence of our college on the community is very positive, and other schools of a similar profile are expressing interest in cooperating with the college,” he adds.
The college’s expansion also includes a successful publishing program of scholarly publications, as well as participation in academic exchanges and conferences in the country and abroad. “We have more invitations to present scholarly papers at different events than time allows. We are happy to be a part of a larger academic and educational community,” Kozirog adds.
Accredited by Poland’s Ministry of Education, the college received the church’s accreditation last year. [ANN, June 9, 2005] “We are looking forward to a day when we can offer graduate degrees. Such possibilities are under consideration and discussion with such Adventist European schools as Fiedensau in neighboring Germany, and with Newbold College in England. ...Our intentions also include enlarging our qualified teaching staff, expanding our library and further cooperation with the country’s educational institutions,” Kozirog comments.
“I was talking with a student in one of our courses and asked what her plans were after graduation. She said: ‘I will want to continue to study for my masters degree, but will wait until our college gets to award such degrees. I like it here.’ Obviously, I was inspired. There are many others with a similar attitude toward our school,” Kozirog stated.
On Sunday, June 25, the college graduates, students, faculty and guests marched through the town of Podkowa Lesna celebrating the school’s 80th anniversary. The 2006 graduating class was 647, the college’s largest.