The small number and advanced age of its members made the decision inevitable, a dramatic consequence of the dying out of vocations.
Father André Moreau SJ, the last superior of the Liège community, recalled that the Jesuits founded two colleges in Liège as early as the 16th. century : the Collège en Isle (or Collège des Jésuites Wallons) and the Collège des Anglais.
In 1828, after the restoration of the Society of Jesus, the Collège Saint-Servais was founded clandestinely by a diocesan priest.
Having become a Jesuit, this priest entrusted Saint-Servais to the Society of Jesus. Similarly, the Collège Saint-Louis (named after Saint Louis de Gonzague) was founded by the Jesuits on the other bank of the Meuse at the end of the 19th century, before being entrusted to the diocese of Liège in 1949.
And in the premises of Saint-Louis, the Jesuits opened, at the beginning of the 20th century , the Institut Gramme, a school of industrial engineers, now integrated into HELMo (Haute École Libre Mosane).
On June 13, 2026, during the thanksgiving mass, Father Thierry Dobbelstein SJ, Provincial Superior of the Jesuits of the French-speaking Western European Province (EOF), spoke about vocations in his homily. "It is not enough to pray (...) vocations do not fall from the sky, but they grow from below."
For Father André Moreau, SJ, it is now up to "young people to invent new forms of vocations . " The Jesuit educational tradition will nevertheless continue with the Saint-Benoît-Saint-Servais school group, which educates more than 2,000 students, the Jesuits' statement specifies.
The priests moved gradually between the end of June and mid-July 2026. Fr. André Moreau, SJ, and Fr. Marc Chodoire, SJ, joined Maison Saint-Claude La Colombière in Brussels. Frs. Etienne Triaille, SJ, and Etienne de Ghellinck, SJ, settled in the Lille Station and Lille Marché communities, respectively. Brother François-Xavier Evrard is at La Diglette.