Sangji Retreat Center

History & origins

The history of Sangji Retreat House begins with “Sangji Hall,” which opened in 1976. According to the official account of the Missionary Benedictine Sisters of Tutzing, the facility was initially used as an educational center for factory workers. In rapidly industrializing Seoul, the sisters’ provision of a place for education and encounter with workers became the beginning of the retreat house’s history.

The facility was later renamed Sangji Retreat House, and its role developed into a Catholic space for retreats, formation, and gatherings. It was frequently used for Cursillo meetings, and the “Sunflower Retreat” was offered for elementary and middle-school students. In its own history, the community recalls that many participants in this program later entered priestly or religious life.

After decades of use, Sangji Retreat House was refurbished in 2024. This was more than a physical renovation: it continued, in a form suited to the present, a development that had begun with worker education in the 1970s and expanded into retreat ministry and spiritual accompaniment for Catholics. Its history shows how the sisters’ apostolate of education, retreat, vocation, and spiritual accompaniment has continued in one place while taking different forms over time. The transition from Sangji Hall to a retreat house did not result from a change of operator; it was a development in which the same religious community broadened the form of its apostolate according to changing needs. Worker education and encounter were central in the industrialization era, while retreats for Catholics, faith formation for young people, and programs connected with vocation discernment were added later. The 2024 refurbishment can be understood as a further stage that reorganized these accumulated functions for the needs of a contemporary retreat environment. That development continues in the retreat apostolate carried on there today.