Sisters of St. Paul

History & origins

The Daughters of St. Paul began on June 15, 1915, in Alba, Italy, through Blessed James Alberione and Sister Tecla Merlo. The congregation's mission was to employ the emerging means of communication for the proclamation of the Gospel, and it entered Korea on December 13, 1960. After arriving in Korea, the sisters developed their apostolate around publishing and St. Paul book centers, later broadening it to audiovisual materials, biblical apostolates, the internet, and other new media. After opening their first St. Paul Book Center in Seoul in 1961, they also expanded the regional network of this apostolate through Myeongdong in 1968, Jeonju in 1969, Busan in 1971, and Daegu in 1972.

One of the first clearly documented milestones of the Pauline apostolate in Andong appears in the Diocese of Andong's historical chronology for December 3, 1992. The diocesan record states that the Andong St. Paul Book Center opened on that date. The congregation's own official timeline, separately, identifies 1994 as the year of its “entry into the Diocese of Andong.” Because the two sources describe events of different kinds, it is safer not to force them into a single date: the 1992 record marks the opening of a local apostolic base, while the 1994 entry is the congregation's own chronological marker for its presence in the diocese.

The Daughters of St. Paul later continued to expand their communications apostolate beyond print publishing to online book services and digital content. Today, the directory of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea lists the Andong community of the Daughters of St. Paul as a current religious community in the Diocese of Andong. The history of the congregation in Andong can therefore be understood as a progression from a regional point of contact for publishing and the ministry of the Word, to an established religious presence in the diocese, and then to the continuation of the same evangelizing mission amid changing forms of media.