Introduction

Blackfriars Studium offers a philosophical and theological formation which is both rooted in the riches of the Catholic Tradition and engaged in contemporary thought and concerns.

Blackfriars Studium is the House of Studies of the English Dominicans. Our study of philosophy and theology has always had its home in a Dominican life of prayer and religious observance, and Blackfriars Priory is a community of about twenty Dominican friars living, praying and studying in the centre of Oxford. Most recently Dominican students and lecturers have come to Oxford from America, Australia, Ireland, Belgium and Poland.

As a mature student (age 21 or above) in the Blackfriars Studium you can study philosophy and theology in the Catholic and Dominican tradition. If you are preparing for the Catholic priesthood you can read for the STB (Baccalaureate in Sacred Theology) granted by the Pontifical University of St Thomas, Rome (the Angelicum). Since the 1970s, Dominican students for the priesthood have been joined by students from other orders, Benedictine, Servite, Franciscan, Oratorian and Carmelite. It is also possible for lay men and women to begin the Angelicum's STB programme by studying in the Blackfriars Studium and to conclude the programme with at least a year's full-time study in Rome.

You will be taught by a combination of lectures, classes, and the famous 'Oxford tutorial' for which you prepare a piece of work to be discussed with your tutor. We offer you access to a specialist teaching staff, a library of some 35,000 volumes in theology and philosophy, IT facilities, and the support of a small and friendly academic community which draws on the strengths of the Dominican tradition of intellectual endeavour. There is a common room, where students can meet one another, relax, make snacks, and socialise. We normally do not offer accommodation to Studium students.