 According to a decree of 3 February 1804, the chairs for religious doctrine were established for the sake of “improving religious instruction”. Connected with these professorships was the important assignment to deliver the Sunday homilies, also called ‘exhortations’ or ‘Erbauungsreden’ (‘edifying addresses’), to the students (Bolzano gave them voluntarily also on holidays); the effectiveness of these chairs (whose occupants were therefore also called ‘catechists’ — cf. Bolzano 1836, 31) was thereby essentially enhanced.