올리베따노 성 베네딕도 수녀회

History & origins

The Korean history of the Olivetan Benedictine Sisters began in 1931, when sisters from the motherhouse in Cham, Switzerland, were sent to the Yanji region of Manchuria. Through liberation and war, the center of the community shifted to South Korea, where religious life and various apostolates were rebuilt with Busan as the principal base.

The Korean community formally adopted the name “Olivetan Benedictine Sisters” in 1973 and received approval from the Holy See as an autonomous congregation in 1981. As membership and ministries expanded nationwide, a district system dividing the congregation into Busan, Daejeon, and Seoul regions was introduced in 1991.

The present Dongja-dong community represents the Seoul District created within that structure. Public official and scholarly sources, however, do not clearly establish the exact year in which the Seoul District settled at the current Dongja-dong address, so no relocation date is asserted here.