About this place
Maria Spirituality House is a retreat and prayer facility of the Diocese of Suwon in Bongdam, Hwaseong, for which the Servants of Mary are responsible. The congregation’s Korean branch is located at the same site, making the character of the facility clear: it is not an independent parish church but a retreat space operated within the community life and spirituality of the religious institute.
The Servants of Mary seek to follow Mary’s example through fraternal community life and service to others, while carrying out parish, educational, and social apostolates. Maria Spirituality House is closely connected with that religious life and provides a setting for prayer, retreat, and spiritual reflection. Visitors can best understand it not as a tourism facility but as a place of faith and spirituality entrusted to a religious community.
The fact that the Catholic Church Directory in Korea separately identifies both the retreat and prayer facility and the congregation's Korean branch at the same Bongdam base makes the character of the site clearer. The retreat house is not simply the sisters' living quarters, but a distinct spiritual space through which the community shares its tradition of prayer and service with members of the Church. The name “Maria Spirituality House” is therefore best understood as expressing the congregation's spirituality and retreat apostolate rather than merely describing a lodging facility.
History & origins
The Servants of Mary are recorded in the Catholic Church Directory in Korea as having entered Korea on September 15, 1985. After beginning their work in Cheongju, the sisters sought to establish themselves in the Diocese of Suwon and, in 1998, settled in Bongdam, Hwaseong, where they put up a temporary building. This provides an important background for the origins of the Bongdam base where Maria Spirituality House is now located.
According to records connected with the Diocese of Suwon, the congregation expanded its foundation for parish, educational, and social apostolates after settling there, and completed a convent building in 2004. The Bongdam community subsequently developed into a religious base supporting several apostolates within the diocese.
Maria Spirituality House itself is officially identifiable as a retreat facility from December 8, 2020. The Catholic Church Directory in Korea records that date as its establishment date and names the Servants of Mary as the responsible congregation. The history of the place can therefore be understood as a sequence from the congregation’s settlement in Bongdam in 1998 and the completion of its convent base in 2004 to the formal establishment of a retreat and prayer facility in 2020.
The move to Bongdam was connected with the congregation's effort to establish itself in the Diocese of Suwon so that its members could take part more readily in meetings, formation, lectures, and other Church activities. At the time, the diocese was preparing a new parish in the Bongdam area and also assisted the congregation as it secured a site. The community that began in a temporary building in 1998 opened a childcare center when its convent was completed in 2004, and later broadened its diocesan apostolates by sending sisters to Suwon Emmaus to assist migrants. Against this background, the separate listing of Maria Spirituality House as a retreat and prayer facility in 2020 marks a further development of the Bongdam base—from a center of religious community life and varied apostolates to a place with an explicitly recognized retreat function as well.
Korean Catholic Places Encyclopedia
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Building information
- Passenger elevators: 0
- 3 above-ground floors · 0 below-ground floors
- Approved for use in 2020
- Total floor area: 786㎡
Building-register record · · Source
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- 한국천주교주교회의 온라인 주소록
Diocese
Suwon Diocese (Diocese of Suwon)
Official website: http://www.casuwon.or.kr
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