Epiphany Apostolic College

{{Infobox religious building

| name = Epiphany Apostolic College

| religious_affiliation = Catholic Church

| image = Epiphany_Apostolic_College.jpg

| caption = Epiphany Apostolic College's second and final location, in New York.

| coordinates =

| location = New Windsor, New York (formerly Baltimore)

| rite = Latin Church

| country = United States

| consecration_year =

| status = defunct

| type = Seminary

| leadership =

| ownership =

| patron = Epiphany

| architect =

| architecture_style =

| established = 1889 (Baltimore)

| groundbreaking =

}}

Epiphany Apostolic College, formerly known as the Josephite Collegiate Seminary, was a Catholic minor seminary founded in Baltimore, Maryland in 1889.

History

The seminary was founded in 1889 by Fr John R. Slattery of the Mill Hill Missionaries, an English Catholic society of apostolic life. The seminary soon came under the service of the Josephites, an American offshoot of the Mill Hills serving African Americans, cofounded by Slattery.{{Cite book |last=Ochs |first=Stephen J. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/28646434 |title=Desegregating the altar : the Josephites and the struggle for black priests, 1871–1960 |date=1993 |publisher=Louisiana State University Press |isbn=0-8071-1859-1 |edition= |location=Baton Rouge |oclc=28646434}}{{Cite book |last=Foley |first=Albert Sidney |url=https://archive.org/details/godsmenofcolorco0000fole/mode/2up?q=%22Epiphany+Apostolic+College,%22 |title=God's men of color; the colored Catholic priests of the United States, 1854-1954 |date=1955 |publisher=New York, Farrar, Straus |others=Internet Archive |pages=44}} Charles Uncles, the first African-American Catholic priest trained and ordained in the United States (and a cofounder of the Josephites), studied at Epiphany.

After Uncles, the young priest Dominic James Manley, also a Josephite cofounder, served as president of Epiphany from 1889 to October 1893. Born in Ireland and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Manley died in office at the age of 39. He had been a diocesan priest before joining the Josephites.{{Cite web |title=Pilot, Volume 56, Number 45 — 11 November 1893 — Boston College Newspapers |url=https://newspapers.bc.edu/?a=d&d=pilot18931111-01.2.38&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN------- |access-date=2024-12-10 |website=newspapers.bc.edu}}

Fr Lambert A. Welbers, another Josephite cofounder, served as Epiphany president from 1901 to March 1903. He later became pastor of St. Peter Claver Mission in Tyler, Texas.{{Cite journal |last=Lampe |first=Philip |date=2021-04-29 |title=In the Spirit of St. Peter Claver: Social Justice and Black Catholicism in San Antonio |url=https://athenaeum.uiw.edu/verbumincarnatum/vol8/iss1/1/ |journal=Verbum Incarnatum: An Academic Journal of Social Justice |volume=8 |issue=1 |issn=1934-9084}} At Epiphany, he was succeeded by Fr Robert J. Carse, who went on to become pastor of St. Patrick Parish in St. Charles, Illinois, for 41 years and died in 1950.{{Cite web |title=History |url=https://stpatrickparish.org/about/history |access-date=2024-12-10 |website=St. Patrick Parish}} Another early president was Fr Thomas B. Donovan, and Fr Thomas J. Duffy around 1909.{{Cite book |last=Brill |first=Michael |url=https://archive.org/details/church-master-working-copy-aug-2023-to-int-arch/page/382/mode/2up?q=%22Josephite+Collegiate%22 |title=Some Scattered Notes on the Religious Institutions of Baltimore, Maryland and Surrounding Counties |date=2023-08-21 |pages=353}}

The seminary later moved to New Windsor, New York, in 1925. For several decades in the early to late 20th century, racial politics led to the seminary being closed to most African Americans.

Epiphany was merged into the former Our Lady of Hope Seminary in Newburgh in 1970.{{Cite web |title=Epiphany Apostolic College, formerly Josephite Collegiate Seminary, Newburgh, New York, Undated |url=https://cdm16280.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16280coll2/id/217 |access-date=2022-09-21 |website=cdm16280.contentdm.oclc.org |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=Transcripts from Closed Colleges |url=http://www.nysed.gov/college-university-evaluation/transcripts |access-date=2022-09-21 |website=New York State Education Department |language=en}} It later became Epiphany Apostolic High School, which closed in 1975. It is now the site of a public middle school.