About this place
The House of Spirituality in Yangsan, Gyeongsangnam-do is a retreat and prayer house belonging to the Diocese of Busan. The Catholic Church directory in Korea classifies it not as a parish or an ordinary chapel but specifically as a diocesan “retreat/prayer house,” and diocesan notices have long presented it as a place where individuals and groups can stay for prayer and retreats.
The center is a diocesan spiritual space for Catholics seeking time away from daily routines for prayer, reflection, Mass, and spiritual programs. It developed in close connection with the Catholic Charismatic Renewal in the Diocese of Busan and has served both individual and communal retreats in a broad natural setting. The House of Spirituality is therefore best understood not simply as lodging, but as a diocesan retreat center created to support prayer, conversion, and the spiritual renewal of individuals and communities.
Because it does not exercise territorial pastoral care in the way a parish does, the center should not be understood in the same way as an ordinary parish church. Its primary purpose is not regular ministry to a defined neighborhood but to help individuals and groups spend a period in prayer and reflection on their faith; its chapel and retreat facilities serve that purpose.
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.
Korean Catholic Places Encyclopedia
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Building information
- Passenger elevators: 0
- 4 above-ground floors · 0 below-ground floors
- Approved for use in 1990
- Total floor area: 2,459㎡
Building-register record · · Source
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- 한국천주교주교회의 온라인 주소록
Diocese
Busan Diocese (Diocese of Busan)
Official website: https://www.catholicbusan.or.kr
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