Sisters of St. Paul of Chartres

History & origins

The Daughters of St. Paul were founded in Alba, Italy, on June 15, 1915, by Blessed James Alberione. The institute was established to use the developing means of social communication for the proclamation of the Gospel. The sisters entered Korea on December 13, 1960, and opened their first St. Paul bookstore in Chungmuro the following year, beginning their apostolate of publishing and distribution.

The institute's official chronology records its entry into the Diocese of Busan in 1971. This formed part of the expansion of its Korean apostolate beyond Seoul into local Churches. In the decades that followed, the sisters broadened their missionary methods in response to changing media, moving beyond print into audiovisual media, biblical apostolates, the internet, and digital content.

The Catholic Church directory in Korea now lists the community in Daecheong-dong as the Busan community of the Daughters of St. Paul. The publicly available official chronology, however, does not specify when the Busan community moved to its present Daecheong-dong address. The history that can be stated securely therefore centers on the 1971 entry into the Diocese of Busan and the present existence of the Busan community; intermediate moves should not be asserted without further documentation.