Claretian Missionaries (Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary)

History & origins

The Claretian Missionaries were founded on July 16, 1849, in Vic, Spain, when Fr. Antonio Maria Claret gathered with five fellow priests. The congregation began as a missionary community dedicated to the proclamation of the Gospel under the name “Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary,” and later expanded its activity to many regions.

The congregation’s official chronology in Korea records the approval of the Korean community in November 1985. As the Claretians expanded their communities and apostolates in Korea, they entered the Diocese of Chuncheon in April 2001. This marked the extension of their Korean ministry into the territory of the Chuncheon Diocese.

The Naksan community in Yangyang was opened later, in July 2015. The order’s current official guide calls it the Naksan Branch, while the Directory of the Catholic Church in Korea records it as the Naksan Monastery. The place in Yangyang thus belongs to a historical sequence that begins with the congregation’s nineteenth-century foundation in Spain, continues through the establishment of its Korean community in the 1980s and its entry into the Diocese of Chuncheon in 2001, and leads to the formation of this local religious community.