About this place
The Gyesan-dong community of the Carmelite Missionaries is officially listed in the Catholic Church Directory in Korea as the congregation’s novitiate. It is a formation community where women beginning religious life learn Carmelite spirituality, common life, and the apostolic character of the congregation, making it an important formation center of the Carmelite Missionaries within the Diocese of Incheon.
The congregation’s official website also identifies the Gyesan-dong novitiate as the venue for its Incheon prayer school and young-adult prayer gatherings. The site is therefore not only an internal house of initial formation but also a place where the congregation shares Carmelite contemplative prayer and spirituality with lay Catholics. The meeting of religious formation and a wider apostolate of prayer in one place clearly expresses the present role of the Gyesan-dong community.
History & origins
The Carmelite Missionaries were founded in Barcelona, Spain, in 1860 by Blessed Francisco Palau. The community began with the aim of living the contemplative tradition of Carmel together with pastoral activity in the world, and in 1907 it received pontifical approval from Pope Pius X. The congregation’s mission in Korea took shape in the 1970s. After Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan granted permission in 1977, sisters sent from the Philippine province entered Korea and established the Korean community.
The early community lived in a series of temporary residences in Seoul. Even after beginning to receive candidates, it had no novitiate in Korea, so novices had to travel to the Philippines for formation. The Korean Catholic Encyclopedia records that, to address this difficulty, the congregation purchased land for a novitiate in Gyesan-dong, Incheon, in 1979.
The Gyesan-dong novitiate was completed in 1983, making it possible to form novices in Korea itself and turning Gyesan-dong into an important milestone in the formation history of the Carmelite Missionaries in Korea. The Korean community produced its first perpetually professed member in 1990. The fact that the official Catholic directory still lists the same Gyesan-dong community as the novitiate shows that the formation role established there has remained central to the identity of the place.
Korean Catholic Places Encyclopedia
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Building information
- Passenger elevators: 0
- 4 above-ground floors · 1 below-ground floors
- Approved for use in 1983
- Total floor area: 1,377㎡
Building-register record · · Source
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Sources and updates
- Information Status
- Official
- Source
- Official source
- Data freshness
- Fresh
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- 한국천주교주교회의 온라인 주소록
Diocese
Incheon Diocese (Diocese of Incheon)
Official website: http://www.caincheon.or.kr
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