International Seminary of Saint Pius X

SSPX was founded, with the canonical approval of the Bishop of Fribourg, in 1970 by French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, former Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers (1962-1968), a Father of the Second Vatican Council and one of the best-known prelates in Africa, where he spent much of his early pastoral ministry.

He retired as head of the Holy Ghost Fathers in 1968 when the order began revisions of its constitutions, which Lefebvre considered modernist.

Shortly after his resignation, Archbishop Lefebvre was approached by seminarians from the French Seminary in Rome who, he said, were being persecuted for their adherence to traditional beliefs and doctrines.

Marie-Dominique Philippe, to teach these seminarians personally, Lefebvre approached the Bishop of Fribourg, who, three months before resigning his see, approved, with a document predated by six days to 1 November 1970, the founding of SSPX at the level of a pia unio, the preliminary stage towards becoming an officially recognized religious institute or Society of Apostolic Life.

[4] Lefebvre resided in a private apartment on the property until his death in 1991 and is buried in a tomb nearby, which was visited by Cardinal Silvio Oddi in 1992.