On 15 May 1585, Pope Sixtus V signed a Papal bull granting the Jesuit Order the right to establish a school in Luxembourg.

[1] The school was eventually founded in 1603 by the Jesuit Order,[2][3] and was located next to the Notre Dame Cathedral, in the Ville Haute quarter.

[4] After the Suppression of the Society of Jesus by Pope Clement XIV in 1773, the school was renamed the Collège royal,[5] and was put under auspices of the clergy.

To commemorate this event, a chronogram ATHENAEVM SIT LVCELBVRGI DECOR (=1817) was placed on the backside of a portal at the school's old premises.

[6] When Luxembourg was occupied by Nazi forces in World War II in 1940, the school was forcibly Germanized, renamed the Gymnasium mit Oberschule für Jungen, and the French language was forbidden.

Infamously, when the Germans dismantled the Gëlle Fra memorial, several hundred of the school's students protested.

In 2012, temporary buildings were built in the school's court to accommodate the students while the existing premises underwent renovation.

[8][9] The Athénée de Luxembourg is an academic institution that achieves highly competitive public exam results.

[10] In 2010, the Athénée de Luxembourg gained the status of an IB World School, and henceforth, offers the International Baccalaureate as one of its programmes.

In 2015, Prince Guillaume handed the Luxembourgish Youth Award (Prix du Mérite Jeunesse) to the EHTK.