Salesian Monastery

History & origins

The exact year when the Salesian community at Geumak-ri was first established is not stated in the current official directory, but by 2021 the community was clearly ministering at the Isidore Sumbisori youth recovery support facility in Geumak-ri. In August of that year, a new Jeju Isidore group of the Association of Salesian Cooperators held its first meeting, with a priest of the Geumak-ri community providing spiritual accompaniment. This shows that the community’s youth ministry was connected with the wider Salesian family in Jeju.

More recently, the physical setting of that ministry changed. In May 2026 the Salesians opened a new Jocheon Community in Jocheon-eup, Jeju City, and moved the Sumbisori facility there, celebrating a blessing for the new site. The new community was arranged to house both the youth recovery support facility and a men’s religious community.

The Korean Catholic directory, however, still separately lists the “Jeju Geumak-ri Community” in 2026. There is therefore no basis for interpreting the transfer of Sumbisori as proof that the Geumak-ri community itself was closed. On the evidence available, Geumak-ri was at least one center of Salesian youth recovery ministry by 2021, and the creation of the Jocheon Community in 2026 marks a reorganization of the locations and structures through which that ministry is carried out.