Little Brothers (Franciscan Order)

History & origins

The origins of Seryu-dong Parish are connected with a decision in the 1960s by the Diocese of Suwon to cooperate with the Franciscans and entrust local pastoral ministry to priests of the order. The parish was established on October 4, 1968. From the beginning Franciscan priests were involved in its pastoral care, creating a structure in which Franciscan spirituality and parish community life developed together. The Catholic Encyclopedia describes a 1966 agreement between the bishop of Suwon and the Franciscans as the background to this beginning, and records that construction of a church and friary started in August 1968 with support from Godeung-dong Parish. The first church was completed and dedicated the following year, providing a pastoral base shared by the Franciscan community and local Catholics.

After the first church and friary were established, the parish grew and gave rise to other communities as the local area changed. In the 1990s it undertook the construction of a new church, and the present church was dedicated in 1996. Catholic historical sources record Seryu-dong as the mother parish of Gosaek-dong and Maegyo-dong, showing that it also contributed to the expansion of the local Church through decades of ministry. The parish’s growth repeatedly brought adjustments of territory and the creation of new parishes. In particular, Gosaek-dong and Maegyo-dong became independent communities, making Seryu-dong their mother parish. As the older church no longer met the scale and pastoral needs of the community, construction of a new church became a major project in the early 1990s; after several years of work, the new church was dedicated in October 1996.

In 2018 the parish celebrated a Mass of thanksgiving for its fiftieth anniversary. On that occasion, the Diocese of Suwon described Seryu-dong as a special case in which parish ministry is entrusted to a religious order and emphasized that Franciscan spirituality had been lived within parish pastoral work over the previous half century. This history shows that Seryu-dong is not merely the location of a friary, but a community formed through a long-standing integration of Franciscan religious life and diocesan parish ministry. Preparations for the fiftieth anniversary included copying the Bible, communal Rosary offerings, a walking pilgrimage, and the publication of a parish history, all of which invited the community to reflect on this combined identity. The original cooperation between the diocese and the order thus continued for more than half a century as ordinary parish ministry, making Seryu-dong a distinctive case within the Diocese of Suwon.