Korean Martyrs Blessed Sisters

History & origins

The Sisters of the Blessed Korean Martyrs were founded by Fr. Andrew Bang Yu-ryong in Kaesong on April 21, 1946. Through the Japanese colonial period and the liberation of Korea, Fr. Bang came to believe that the faith of the Korean martyrs should be carried forward in a form of consecrated life rooted in Korean experience, and he began the community at Kaesong Parish with Andrea Yun Byeong-hyeon and Laurentius Hong Eun-sun. From its earliest years, the congregation also devoted itself to education for the formation of young people and the evangelization of the Korean people.

Amid the upheavals of division and war, the community moved to Cheongpa-dong in Seoul in March 1950 and received ecclesiastical approval in December 1951. Fr. Bang later founded the Clerical Congregation, a Third Order, and the Palma community, forming a wider “Blessed Korean Martyrs religious family” that shared the spirituality of the martyrs. The sisters also worked to collect and honor relics of the martyrs and expanded their apostolates, including establishing a community and martyr memorial institutions at Oryundae in Busan.

The present community in Cheonan is identified by the Catholic directory as the “Daejeon Provincial House.” The research completed for this review did not locate a reliable official source giving the date when the provincial house itself was established in Cheonan. Accordingly, no local foundation date is inferred here; the account is limited to the documented continuity by which a Korean-founded congregation that began in Kaesong expanded its communities and apostolates nationwide and is now present in Cheonan as the Daejeon Provincial House.