서울 마리아니스트 영성 센터

History & origins

The background of the Seoul Marianist Spirituality Center is closely connected with the history of the Daughters of Mary Immaculate in Korea. After receiving an invitation from the Marianist brothers in Korea in 1976, the Japanese province conducted visits to the country. With the approval of Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan, then Archbishop of Seoul, two sisters were sent to Korea in 1979, beginning the history of the Korean community. In 1980 the sisters established a convent in Mok 2-dong, Yangcheon-gu, providing a stable base for community life and apostolic work in Seoul.

From the early period of their presence in Korea, the sisters developed retreats and faith formation as important apostolates. Their retreat ministry began in 1985 at the Marianist Chaminade Retreat House in Incheon and later broadened to include parish service, education, kindergartens and child-care work, and ministry with young people. The Korean community became a district directly under the general administration in 1990 and was raised to a province in 2012. Historical accounts of the congregation identify Marianist spirituality centers, retreat houses, spiritual direction, and faith formation among the major apostolates of the Korean province.

The spirituality center in Mok-dong stands within this broader development of the congregation and its retreat ministry. The current Korean Catholic Directory registers it as an education and retreat center of the Archdiocese of Seoul under the responsibility of the Daughters of Mary, and the facility has continued to use its chapel, lecture space, and group rooms for retreats and formation. Details such as the precise opening year of the present building are not established by the available official sources, but the continuity from the sisters’ arrival in Korea in 1979 and their settlement in Mok-dong in 1980 to today’s spirituality-center apostolate is clearly documented. This continuity makes it possible to understand the center not as an incidental annex of the congregation but as a concrete expression in Mok-dong of the retreat and educational apostolate the sisters have developed in Korea.