6. St. John the Divine + Kyung Hee University

Peace Hall (left); St. John the Divine (right)

You may be surprised to find a replica of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights nestled in the foothills of Seoul at Kyung Hee University. The chief auditorium of the campus, the utterly secular Grand Peace Hall, could be a more-complete version of St. John the Divine.

This extraordinary Kyung Hee University is the brainchild of an equally extraordinary man, Young Seek Choue, who founded the institution in 1951. Here, in a country divided by war and a world divided by ideology, Choue sought to establish a place of learning that would be devoted to the study of peace on an individual, societal, and global level. Today, Kyung Hee is one of the most prestigious universities in South Korea, and attracts scholars from around the world to its international studies programs.