Orsha. Jesuit collegium.

The Catholic order of the Jesuits appeared in Orsha by the privilege of the King of the Commonwealth of Nations, Sigismund Vaza. One of the influential funders was Leo Sapega, Chancellor of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

The Jesuit Collegium in Orsha is a monument of Baroque architecture of the 17th-18th centuries. A whole architectural complex was built - a monastery with a church and farm buildings, St. Michael's Church, a Jesuit collegium, a music bursa and a school, a pharmacy were built.

At that time, the collegium provided the best education, and it was free for representatives of all Christian denominations. The following subjects were taught here: rhetoric, history, geography, logic, philosophy and many others. A theater worked in the collegium and the "Orsha Codex" was created - this is a collection of popular dramas and interludes of the Baroque era, which were staged in Belarus and Poland.

In 1812, the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and the famous writer Stendhal stayed in the collegium building. Among the famous teachers were Antony Lustig and Piotr Puzyna. Pyotr Zavadovsky, the first Minister of Public Education of the Russian Empire, is a graduate of the Jesuit collegium.

The Jesuit collegium was closed in 1820 and rebuilt as a prison. And the church was closed in 1832 and dismantled for building materials. The foundation has survived to our time. In recent years, the building of the collegium has been restored and now houses a library and a museum. A clock is installed on the tower.