University of LVIV
The UNIVERSITY OF LVIV was founded on January 20, 1661, when King John II Casimir granted a charter to the city’s Jesuit Collegium, founded in 1608, giving it “the honour of an academy and the title of a university”. The Jesuits had tried to found a university earlier, in 1589, but did not succeed. Establishing another seat of learning in the Kingdom of Poland was seen as a threat by the authorities of Kraków‘s Jagiellonian University, which did not want a rival and which for many years managed to stymy the Jesuits’ plans.
According to the Treaty of Hadiach (1658), an Orthodox Ruthenian academy was to be created in Kiev and another one in an unspecified location. The Jesuits suspected that it would be established in Lwów/Lviv on the foundations of the Orthodox Brotherhood‘s school, and used this as a pretext for obtaining a royal mandate that elevated their own college to the status of an academy (no city could have two academies).[1][2] King John II Casimir was a supporter of the Jesuits and his stance was crucial. The original royal charter was subsequently confirmed by another decree issued in Częstochowa on February 5, 1661.
In 1758 King Augustus III issued a decree, which described the Collegium as an academy, equal in fact status to the Jagiellonian University, with two faculties, those of Theology and Philosophy.
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