It was founded in 1577 by Pope Gregory XIII as a college for the training of priests and seminarians who worshipped according to the Greek Eastern Catholic liturgies and disciplines.
More recently, seminarians from elsewhere and other Byzantine Rite Eastern Catholic Churches have attended: Melkite Greek Catholic Church, Greeks, Albanians, Romanians, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Belarusians, Slovaks; in past centuries, before the establishment of autonomous colleges, also Ukrainian and Ruthenian students.
The priests it trained were intended to oppose Turkish expansion into former Byzantine lands in the Balkans, Greece and in the Christian east in general, prevent the Protestant Reformation spreading there and help bring the Eastern Churches back into communion with Rome.
[citation needed] Between 1576 and 1577 the College was hosted by several houses in Rome, until in 1577 it found a permanent home on what is now Via del Babuino.
He also pointed out that the college's church of Sant'Atanasio had four Latin altars and so both rites could be practiced on an equal footing.