The story
Founded by Society of Jesus in 1913.1
Origins of the university name
The name of the university is traced to letters of correspondence between two of the three founders of what would become Sophia University, Fr. James Rockliff, SJ and Fr. Hermann Hoffmann, SJ. The Japanese term 上智 ("higher wisdom" or "supreme wisdom", Jōchi) was the equivalent of the Latin word sapientia, which means wisdom. According to Catholic Church tradition, the term sapientia refers to one of the Church's devotional titles for the Blessed Virgin Mary, "the Seat of Wisdom".
When Joseph Eylenbosch, SJ began teaching Greek at the university in April 1924, he thought that the Japanese term jōchi was the equivalent of the Greek term σοφία (sofia). Afterwards, the students had proposed that the school be known as Sophia University.
Fr. Hoffmann, SJ, who was serving as University President at that time, initially opposed the proposal. However, he soon accepted the idea and submitted the proposal to Rome for the approval.
The English-language, peer-reviewed academic journal Monumenta Nipponica, which was first published in 1938, identified itself as being published by Sophia University. The use of Sophia as the university name then became firmly established in Japan and overseas.
History
Early history
The origins of Sophia University could be traced to 1549 when Saint Francis Xavier, a prominent member and co-founder of the Society of Jesus, arrived in Japan to spread Christianity. In his letters to his fellow Jesuits, he had expressed hopes of establishing a university in Japan.
During the so-called Kirishitan period of Japanese history, the Catholic Church had been responsible for establishing and administering educational institutions in Japan called Collegios and Seminarios, serving as bridges between the East and West.
The establishment of the university only began to take place more than 400 years from St. Francis Xavier's arrival in Japan. In 1903, three Jesuit priests from Europe came to Japan to continue the missionary work of the Church and to help establish Sophia University. One of the founders, Fr. Joseph Dahlmann, SJ from Germany, who had come to Japan via India, had listened to the requests of Catholics in the country, who expressed their desires to construct a Catholic university to serve as the cultural and spiritual base of the Church's missionary operations in Japan.
Dahlmann heeded the requests and sent a proposal to the then-Bishop of Rome, Pope Pius X, at the Holy See in Rome. In 1905, Dahlmann was granted a private audience with the Pope, who promised to assign the Society of Jesus to create and administer a Catholic university in Japan. In Dahlmann's Latin memoirs regarding the encounter with Pius, he recounted that he spoke as follows: "Habebitis collegium in Japonica, magnam universitatem (in English: "You (plural) will have in Japan a college that is a great university".).
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On that same year, the then-Bishop of Portland, Maine in the United States, William H. O'Connell, was appointed by the Pope to serve as a special ambassador of the Vatican to Emperor Meiji in Japan. O'Connell was also tasked to survey the situation in Japan. When he was granted an audience with Emperor Meiji, he had ascertained the education policy directions of the Japanese Ministry of Education, and reported to officials at the Holy See regarding the possible establishment of a Catholic university in Japan.
At the 25th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus in held in Rome in September 1906, Pius X issued a formal written statement to the Jesuits to establish a Catholic university in Japan. Thus, the delegates at the Congregation voted unanimously in favour of the Pope's commands, and the first concrete steps were taken to prepare a university institution in the East.
Founding
Sophia University was founded by Jesuits in 1913. It opened with departments of German Literature, Philosophy and Commerce, headed by its founder Fr. Hermann Hoffmann, SJ (1864–1937) as its first official president.
In 1932, a small group of Sophia University students refused to salute the war dead at Yasukuni Shrine in the presence of a Japanese military attache, saying it violated their religious beliefs. The military attache was withdrawn from Sophia as a result of this incident, damaging the university's reputation in the eyes of the government of the Japanese Empire. The Archbishop of Tokyo intervened in the standoff by permitting Catholic students to salute the war dead, after which many Sophia students, as well as Hermann Hoffmann himself, participated in rites at Yasukuni. The Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples later issued the Pluries Instanterque in 1936, which encouraged Catholics to attend Shinto shrines as a patriotic gesture; the Vatican re-issued this document after the war in 1951. Hermann Heuvers served as the university's second president from 1937 until 1941.
Post-war growth
Sophia University continued to grow as it increased the number of academic departments, faculty members and students, in addition to advancing its international focus by establishing an exchange program. Many of its students studied at Georgetown University in the United States as early as 1935. Sophia's junior college was established in 1973, followed by the opening of Sophia Community College in 1976.
21st century
With the founding of the Faculty of Liberal Arts in 2006, Sophia University presently holds 27 departments in its eight faculties. Its current president is Yoshiaki Terumichi. Toshiaki Koso serves as head of its board of directors. Since 2008, the Global Leadership Program was started for students from four Jesuit universities in East Asia: Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines, Fu Jen Catholic University in Taiwan, Sogang University in South Korea, and Sophia University in Japan. In 2016 the university reached out to the four Jesuit junior-senior high schools in Japan, joining them in the Sophia College Corporation to help them pass on the Jesuit charism to their lay faculty through workshops and other assistance. These schools are Sophia-Fukuoka, Eiko Gakuen, Hiroshima Gakuin, and Rokko School.
In 2019, Pope Francis visited Sophia University as a part of his 2019 pastoral tour. This was the first time in 38 years that a pope visited Sophia University.
From Wikipedia’s article on Sophia University, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4