Immaculate Heart of Mary Retreat House

History & origins

Surichigol, where the House of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is located, is connected with a Catholic village in which believers hid and continued their life of faith during the period of persecution. In 1846, Bishop Jean-Joseph-Jean-Baptiste Ferréol and Fr. Antoine Daveluy are recorded as having dedicated the persecuted Church in Joseon to the Blessed Virgin Mary here and organized a Korean branch of the Sodality of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. For this reason, Surichigol is remembered as an important place in the history of devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the Korean Church.

Beginning in 2017, the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Mirinae undertook work to preserve this heritage and improve the setting for pilgrims. Walking paths, parking areas, and places for rest were developed, and a Eucharistic adoration chapel was blessed in December 2018. These improvements formed part of an effort to connect the memory of the old Catholic village with contemporary pilgrimage and prayer.

Within that development, the House of the Immaculate Heart of Mary was established and blessed on June 24, 2019, in a ceremony presided over by Bishop Lazzaro You Heung-sik, then Bishop of Daejeon. An enlarged existing Building A and a newly constructed Building B provided a church, chapel, lecture rooms, meeting rooms, and lodging for individual and group retreats. The creation of the retreat house can thus be seen as a stage in which the historical memory of faith at Surichigol was extended into modern retreat and pilgrimage ministry.