Master of Divinity

The Master of Divinity is a three-year part-time residential programme orientated towards the practice of Christian ministry. The core modules are Old Testament Prophetic Texts, Synoptic Gospels and Acts, Pauline Theology, Reformation Theology: Past Present, Present and Future, Reformed Catholic Dogmatics, Westminster Confession of Faith, and Presbyterian Polity. There is also a dissertation/research project. Students study one module per semester over three years, and classes are limited to one day each week.

Union Theological College, originally known as the Assembly’s College, dates back to 1853. In the early nineteenth century, those who hoped to serve as Presbyterian ministers were educated either in Scotland or at the Belfast Academical Institute, opened in 1814 as both a secondary school and a college. Irish Presbyterianism underwent a significant change in 1840 when the General Synod of Ulster and the Secession Synod were united to establish the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI). The new denomination’s first General Assembly was held on 10 July 1840.