The Roman Catholic Metropolitan Archdiocese of Seoul (Latin: Archidioecesis Metropolitae Seulensis, ) is a Metropolitan archdiocese of the Latin Church of the Roman Catholic Church comprising the metropolitan area of Seoul, South Korea, whose province comprises parts of South Korea (which has two more provinces) 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. 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 the present time. Statistics , it pastorally served 1,534,887 Catholics (15.7% of 9,765,869 total) on 17,349 km2 in 232 parishes with 954 priests. List of territorial losses Pope Leo XIII was the first to approve to separate the community from the control of diocese of Beijing and assigned priests from the Paris Foreign Missions Society but never went due to the Anti-Christian sentiment and persecutions during that time. Pope Gregory XVI granted a Papal bull declaring it as an official See on 9 September 1831, referring to it as the Apostolic Vicariate of Korea 조선 / Corea (Curiate Italian) / 朝鮮 (正體中文), on territory split off from the then Diocese of Peking, of what used to be part of Imperial China. It was renamed on 8 April 1911 as Apostolic Vicariate of Seoul 서울 / 漢城 (正體中文), when it also lost territory to establish the Apostolic Vicariate of Taiku (Daegu). It lost more territories, beginning on 8 May 1920 to establish the Apostolic Vicariate of Wonsan On 17 March 1927, it lost again to establish the Apostolic Prefecture of Hpyeng-yang On 25 April 1939, it lost again to establish the Apostolic Prefecture of Shunsen. It was again officially renamed on 12 July 1950 after its See as Apostolic Vicariate of Seul. It lost territories again on 23 June 1958 to establish the Apostolic Vicariate of Cheongju and the Apostolic Vicariate of Daijeon, On 6 June 1961, it lost again to make the Apostolic Vicariate of Incheon, all three now have Suffragan bishops. The diocese was raised to the level of Metropolitan Archdiocese on 10 March 1962. It lost again on 7 October 1963 to establish the Roman Catholic Diocese of