House of Spirituality

History & origins

The House of Spirituality began in 1984, when members of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in the Diocese of Busan secured a large site in the Eogok area of Yangsan. A small group of volunteers joined their efforts to purchase the land, and over many years supporters and members of the community gradually developed facilities for prayer and retreats. It was not a center completed in a short building project, but a place patiently formed by a prayer community connected with the Charismatic Renewal.

Development continued for nearly twenty years. A report from 2003 described the center as having taken new shape after nineteen years, becoming “a place of prayer for everyone,” and announced its blessing on October 10 of that year in a liturgy presided over by Bishop Cheong Myong-jo of Busan. During this period, the House of Spirituality broadened from a center closely associated with Charismatic Renewal activities into a retreat space used by Catholics throughout the diocese.

The Diocese of Busan subsequently continued to advertise the center for individual and group retreats, and various prayer meetings and Charismatic Renewal retreats were held there. The Catholic Church directory in Korea now classifies it formally as a retreat and prayer house of the Diocese of Busan.

Its history therefore differs from that of a parish founded by territorial division. The essential story is one of a site acquired by lay volunteers, expanded through long-term support and the participation of a prayer community, and developed into a retreat center for the wider diocese. It is an example of how a lay spiritual movement and diocesan retreat ministry became joined in a lasting physical place within the Diocese of Busan. This development gives the House of Spirituality a distinctive history shaped less by a single construction event than by many years of community participation. The long interval between the acquisition of the site in 1984 and the blessing in 2003 reflects a gradual accumulation of support, volunteer service, and facilities through which the center matured into a retreat space for the wider diocese.