Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seoul


The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seoul is a Metropolitan archdiocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church comprising the metropolitan area of Seoul, South Korea, whose province comprises parts of South Korea and all North Korea, yet depends on the missionary Roman Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.
Its Metropolitan bishop as the Archbishop of Seoul resides at his Myeongdong Cathedral in Jung-gu, Seoul. The Archbishop of Seoul is also the Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Pyongyang in North Korea. As the episcopal see is the oldest one in Korea and that of its capital city, he is often considered to be so called the Primate of Korea, though the official title has not been expressly granted by the Holy See by canonical decree.
There are 57 Catholic secretly active parishes in North Korea, but due to the current regime in place, no Catholic priests are permitted permanent residency at current time.

Statistics

As per 2014, it pastorally served 1,472,815 Catholics on 17,349 km² in 229 parishes and 183 missions with 908 priests, 2,282 religious and 266 seminarians.

List of territorial losses

The diocese has received two official Papal visits from Pope John Paul II in May 1984 and October 1989 and from Pope Francis in August 2014.

Ecclesiastical province

The Metropolitan's ecclesiastical province comprises his own Archdiocese and the following suffragan bishoprics, mostly in South Korea :

Apostolic Vicars of Korea