About this place
The Society of St. Francis Xavier at 23 Bibong-gil in Jongno-gu, Seoul, is the home of the congregation’s Korean community. The current Korean Catholic directory records Xavier International School at the same address as a principal educational apostolate. The site is therefore not a territorial parish but a base where the common life of the members is joined to an educational mission. Teaching students from different cultural backgrounds through the school has become one of the community’s principal outward-facing apostolates.
The Society of St. Francis Xavier has emphasized education as a way to foster the integral growth of people and the practice of Gospel values. In Korea it carries out this mission in an international school environment, helping students of different languages and national backgrounds learn and grow together. The Gugi-dong community grounds that educational work in religious prayer and common life, creating a close relationship between the congregation and its school in the same area. The significance of the site therefore extends beyond being a religious-house address: it is a center where the congregation encounters the Church and an international local community through education.
History & origins
The Society of St. Francis Xavier was founded in 1913 and entered Korea on August 10, 1980. The Korean community established its religious life while developing education as one of its principal apostolates. Xavier International School, now associated with the congregation’s Gugi-dong community, is a concrete expression of that educational mission. The congregation’s arrival in Korea dates to 1980, but the present international school and the Gugi-dong site did not exist in their current form from the beginning, so the stages should be distinguished.
Xavier International School received approval for establishment in February 2002 and opened in Hyehwa-dong, Seoul, in March of that year. Catholic press reports state that the school began with twelve students and aimed to combine an international educational environment with Gospel values and integral formation. As enrollment and educational activities grew, a more suitable setting became necessary, and the congregation proceeded with plans for a new school building in Gugi-dong.
The new Gugi-dong school building was blessed on June 25, 2005, marking a new stage in the apostolate. The current Korean Catholic directory lists both the Society of St. Francis Xavier and Xavier International School at the same address, 23 Bibong-gil in Jongno-gu. Public sources do not, however, establish the exact date on which the religious community itself began residing in Gugi-dong or whether the move of the community coincided precisely with the school construction. The securely documented sequence is the congregation’s 1980 entry into Korea, the school’s 2002 opening, the 2005 Gugi-dong school building, and the present educational base. This distinction makes the meaning of the present Gugi-dong site clearer. The congregation’s Korean history reaches back to 1980, but the emergence of this address as a visible center of its educational apostolate is more securely connected with the process by which the international school established its new Gugi-dong campus in the 2000s.
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- 한국천주교주교회의 온라인 주소록
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Official website: https://aos.catholic.or.kr
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