Christendom College, founded in 1977, is a co-educational, lay-operated Roman Catholic institution of higher learning founded under the patronage of Our Lady of Fatima. It offers undergraduate and graduate programs to approximately 500 students in Front Royal, Virginia, and study abroad opportunities in Rome, Italy and Donegal, Ireland. It is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) to award the Associate of Arts, the Bachelor of Arts, and the Master of Arts degrees.
The mission statement of the college reads:
“Christendom College is a Catholic coeducational college institutionally committed to the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church.
The College provides a Catholic liberal arts education, including an integrated core curriculum grounded in natural and revealed truth, the purpose of which at both the undergraduate and graduate levels is to form the whole person for a life spent in the pursuit of truth and wisdom. Intrinsic to such an education is the formation of moral character and the fostering of the spiritual life. This education prepares students for their role as faithful, informed, and articulate members of Christ’s Church and society.
Learn more about the history of Christendom College.
Dr. Warren H. Carroll
Warren Carroll (1932–2011) was founder of Christendom College, serving as president from 1977–85, and as chairman of the Department of History from 1985–2002. Carroll earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in history from Columbia University. The author of numerous books, he has won a well-deserved reputation as one of the foremost Catholic historians of our time.
Dr. Kristin P. Burns
Dr. Carroll knew Kristin Burns (nee Kristin M. Popik) from the Institute in Spain where she had served as his assistant for two years. She had been a philosophy student of Dr. Frederick Wilhelmsen, one of Triumph’s founders, at the University of Dallas. After graduating from Dallas, Dr. Burns received her master’s degree in philosophy from Niagara University and taught there for several years. Soon after, Dr. Carroll invited her to head the philosophy department at Christendom, and to serve as the first Dean of Women. Just before the college opened, she went on to receive her Ph.D. in philosophy from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome, the first woman to be so honored.
Mr. Raymund P. O’Herron
Mr. Raymund O’Herron was the second member of the founding team. He had earned his Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from the Catholic University of America in 1962 and had worked for a number of years in the engineering field. He had also earned his master’s in philosophy from Catholic University in 1973, after which he had taught at a diocesan high school in New York state. He met Dr. Carroll at a weekend forum sponsored by the SCC in February of 1975. In November of that same year, the two met again at another weekend forum where they had a chance to talk more. In January 1976, Mr. O’Herron expressed an interest to Dr. Carroll in teaching philosophy at a Catholic college. Dr. Carroll said he was going to start a college and asked Mr. O’Herron if he would be interested in a position. Anne Carroll had opened Seton School in 1975 in Manassas, Virginia, and in 1976, Mr. O’Herron was given a position teaching there while assisting Dr. Carroll in setting up the college. When the college opened, Mr. O’Herron became Dean of Men and professor of philosophy.
Dr. Jeffrey A. Mirus
Dr. Jeffrey A. Mirus, an historian educated at Princeton, was teaching in North Carolina at Pembroke State University in 1975. Dr. Carroll knew of him from Triumph, for which the latter had occasionally written. Frustrated with the lack of solid Catholic scholarship, Dr. Mirus had begun the quarterly journal, Faith & Reason, to provide a forum for the work of orthodox scholars in all fields. Dr. Carroll sent Dr. Mirus a prospectus on the college that Dr. Mirus thoroughly reviewed and sent back with his suggestions. Dr. Carroll was so impressed with what Dr. Mirus had suggested that he immediately asked Dr. Mirus to join the board of directors of the corporation which was to launch the college. Dr. Mirus accepted and was later given teaching and administrative positions, becoming the college’s first Director of Academic Affairs.
Pursuing his special interest in Catholic publishing, Dr. Mirus left Christendom College in 1985 to found Trinity Communications, a non-profit corporation with the purpose of advancing and defending the Catholic Faith. In 1993, the company shifted its focus to online publication, and in 1996 he founded PetersNet.net, which became CatholicCulture.org in 2003. He and his wife, Barbara, have six children, all of whom have attended Christendom.
Dr. William H. Marshner
The founding five faculty were completed by William Marshner. Dr. Carroll knew him from Triumph, where Dr. Marshner had been an assistant editor since 1971. Before that, while still a Lutheran (he converted to Catholicism in 1967), he had pursued a Ph.D. in Ancient Near Eastern Languages and Literature at Yale. Dr. Marshner had attended the first CCI in Spain in 1970 and was on the CCI faculty thereafter. In the summer of 1973, had become Washington editor of the Catholic weekly, The Wanderer.
Here, also, Providence smoothed the way. Part of Dr. Marshner’s beat at The Wanderer was to travel around the country reporting on the scandals erupting in dioceses everywhere. Thus, he was able to connect concerned Catholic parents everywhere with the Wanderer Forum Weekends that Dr. Carroll was setting up. In 1975, Dr. Marshner began graduate studies at the University of Dallas. He started in philosophy under Dr. Wilhelmsen, but switched to theology and earned his master’s degree. Throughout his time at Dallas, Dr. Marshner was a mainstay of Dr. Carroll’s team of Wanderer Forum lecturers around the country. So Dr. Carroll knew him well and was pleased when Dr. Marshner accepted his offer to become the head of the Theology Department at Christendom. After the college was well under way, Dr. Marshner completed his S.T.D. (Doctorate of Sacred Theology) from the Pontifical Lateran University.