Available reels: 3
|Creator||Séminaire des missions étrangères (Paris)|
|Title||Fonds du Séminaire des missions étrangères, Paris|
MG 17 A 3
|Document source||Library and Archives Canada / Bibliothèque et Archives Canada|
The Seminary of Quebec (or Séminaire de Québec) is a Roman Catholic community of priests in Quebec City founded by Bishop François de Laval (1623 - 1708), the first bishop of New France in 1663. 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, from which is derived the acronym SME, still in use today. The first role of the Séminaire de Québec was to prepare young men for ordination and ministry in parishes and missions as far away as Louisiana. The Seminary was thus founded together with the Major Seminary, where future priests received their training.
This collection includes various documents. The most important part is correspondence, particularly letters that passed between the directors of Paris, bishops or apostolic vicars and managers of missions. There are also disputes between missionaries and directors of the Séminaire de Québec, as well as a paper on the establishment of an ecclesiastical province in Oregon and the Séminaire de Québec by Cardinal Elzéar-Alexandre Taschereau (1820 - 1898).