In the early part of 1987, the Most Reverend Pedro R. Dean, the Archbishop of Palo, along with the administration and faculty of the Sacred Heart Seminary received a bad news that starting the academic year 1987-88, the Seminario Mayor de San Carlos of Cebu, the theological seminary to where Palo had been sending most of her seminarians for the theological studies, was finally closing her doors to Palo. The reason was that there was no more room for seminarians of dioceses not belonging to the Cebu Metropolitan Province.

Seminario Mayor de San Carlos was not alone in sending Palo this bad signal; the other seminaries like Our Lady of Angels Seminary (OLAS) in Novaliches, Quezon City, as well as St. Augustine Major Seminary (SASMA) in Tagaytay City had informed the Archbishop that they were limiting their entrants due to lack of space. UST Central Seminary and San Jose Seminary, in particular, had long been accepting very limited number – only one or two – from their sending seminaries.

It was under these circumstances that the Archbishop of Palo decided to establish a theologate. Since there was not a single centavo to start such gigantic task, the Archbishop had to borrow from the bank a sufficient amount that would start the project, along with the plan to seek financial assistance from funding institution in Germany and Italy.

On March 22, 1988, the cornerstone for the future theologate was layed. It was also the official launching of the fund-raising campaign in support of the project. By the end of July 1988, the first half of the necessary structure was finished and was ready to welcome the first group of formandi.

On August 5, 1988, the half-finished structure was blessed by Archbishop Dean in a simple but solemn ceremony, and in the presence of the suffragan bishops of the Metropolitan Province of Palo.

By the early part of 1990, the construction of the seminary building and an octagon-shaped two storey edifice – the second floor serving as the chapel – was completed. The official blessing and inauguration of the whole complex took place on February 21, 1991 – during the 61st birthday of Archbishop Dean. The Archbishop himself presided over the rites of blessing, and the concelebrated mass, with the suffragan bishops of the Metropolitan Province, the clergy of Palo, and a good number of lay faithful in attendance.

On September 8, 2001, the construction of the Academic Building started. It was completed and blessed on August 5, 2003 by Archbishop Pedro Dean. It became the center of the academic formation of the seminarians.

On November 8, 2013, the Supertyphoon Yolanda (International name: Haiyan) destroyed almost everything in the province. This did not spare the theologate – it was put into debris which made the Archbishop John F. Du decide to make a new theologate building. After the typhoon, the theologate seminarians stayed at the retirement house for priests of the Archdiocese of Palo called Patmos. It continued until the following academic year. The ground-breaking ceremony for the new formation house happened on March 19, 2015. On the Academic Year 2016-2017, seminarians started occupying the SJEST building. On 2017, with the Gathering of Theologate Seminarians from the Visayas, the new chapel was constructed.