The Faculty of Theology is the oldest one, being there already in 1573 when the Olomouc College was promoted to the university. It was perceived by the Czech Protestant population as the core symbol of recatholization forced by Habsburgs, which led to the Jesuits being driven out of Olomouc at the beginning of the Bohemian Revolt and whole university being closed in the years 1618–1621. The Faculty of Theology continued to have university privileges, including the right to award university degrees even when the university itself was downgraded to Lyceum in the years 1782–1827. Following the Habsburg repression of the university in 1860, it was the only functioning faculty up until the re-establishment of the whole University in 1946, together with the University Library safeguarding the continuation between the old and re-established University of Olomouc. The Faculty's name was extended to Saints Cyril and Methodius Faculty of Theology in 1919. It was closed by the Germans in 1939–1945 with its students and professors being enslaved and deported to work in Germany. It was closed again by the communists in 1950–1968 and repeatedly in 1974–1989.