CICM was founded by Reverend Theophile Verbist, a Belgian diocesan priest (1823- 1868). Appointed National Director of the Work of the Holy Childhood in 1860. he showed great dedication, with special concern for missionary work among the Chinese. The Holy Spirit inspired him and his first companions to found a missionary Congregation. having as goal "the conversion of the infidels", especially the preaching of the faith to the Chinese and the salvation of the many abandoned infants.

             The Statutes were approved by Engelbert Cardinal Sterckx, Archbishop of Mechelen, Belgium, on November 28, 1862, the official founding date of the Congregation. Shortly thereafter the first group established residence at Scheut, near Brussels. which explains the popular name: Missionaries of Scheut. 
On October 24. 1864. Theophile Verbist and his companions pronounced the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience according to the Statutes. They also promised "to go to foreign nations" and to commit themselves totally to the missionary purpose of the Congregation. 
           The founder left for China with a first group on August 25, 1865. Less than three years later he died in Inner Mongolia on February 23, 1868.           

           In the years that followed , the Church followed the colonial powers to plant the cross in the interior of newly explored countries in Africa and Asia as well. In 1888 Cicm started its first mission in the enormously huge and unexplored "Congo Free State", actual Democratic Republic of Congo.

          Two Years later, on July 20, 1900, the Sacred Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith approved the first Constitutions which required the profession of perpetual vows for new members, and  established the Congregation definitively as a religious missionary Institute.