Paurastya Vidyāpīṭham or the Pontifical Oriental Institute of Religious Studies is an autonomous Faculty of Theology erected at the St. Thomas Apostolic Seminary, Vadavathoor, Kottayam.
By a decree of the Congregation for Catholic Education Prot. No.674/72/13, the Theological Department of the seminary was affiliated to the Faculty of Oriental Ecclesiastical Sciences at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome on 21 February 1973. After an experimental period of four years, the affiliation was renewed and extended by the letter of the Congregation for Catholic Education, dated 10 April 1977. Then realizing the important role of this seminary in the life of the Oriental Churches of India and taking into account its steady growth in the past years, the Congregation for Catholic Education raised its academic section into an independent Theological Faculty, with the name Paurastya Vidyāpīṭham (PVP), with the right to confer the degrees of B.Th. (Bachelor of Theology), M.Th. (Master of Theology) and D.Th. (Doctor of Theology) through the decree Perinsigne Fidei Christianae Testimonium on 03 July 1982, on the Feast of St. Thomas, the Apostle of India.
On 15 August 1985, the Department of Philosophy was given the power to confer the degree of B.Ph. (Bachelor of Philosophy). More than 2000 students had been graduated from the Department of Philosophy since 1985. Since 2013, there were two sections; namely the graduate students and the degree students. The curriculum of these two sections were approved by the Congregation for Catholic Education on 25 June 2013. After the promulgation of Veritatis gaudium of Pope Francis on 2017, the Congregation asked the PVP to move towards an Institute of Philosophy at PVP. On 12 December 2022 the Dicastery for Culture and Education raised the Philosophy section at PVP to an Institute of Cycle I of Philosophy and it was formally inaugurated by Mar George Cardinal Alencherry, the Chancellor of PVP on 07 February 2023.
The PVP was authorized officially to commence the Doctoral Course in Theology by the letter of the Congregation for Catholic Education dated 28 November 1986. The Institute of Eastern Canon Law at PVP aggregated to the Pontifical Oriental Institute, Rome was erected on 12 December 2016 and was formally inaugurated on 27 August 2017.