Society of Jesus Monastery

History & origins

Within the development of the Jesuits in Korea, the Suwon novitiate is recorded as an important base for religious formation. The Korean Catholic Encyclopedia states that a blessing ceremony for the Jesuit novitiate in Suwon took place in 1984 and that the Korean Jesuit mission became an independent region the following year, in 1985.

This record shows that the Suwon novitiate took shape alongside the institutional growth of the Society of Jesus in Korea. Publicly available histories, however, do not give a detailed account of the exact building used in 1984 or of every later physical change, so the physical continuity between that building and the present Pajang-dong structure should not be asserted beyond the evidence.

Today, both the Catholic directory and the Diocese of Suwon officially list the Pajang-dong address as the Jesuit novitiate. Within what can be verified, the history of the place can therefore be understood around two points: the establishment of a Jesuit formation base in Suwon, marked by the 1984 blessing, and the continuing novitiate function that remains at the present site.

Because a Jesuit novitiate has the distinctive function of beginning the formation of new members, the history of the Suwon novitiate is best read in connection with the Society’s development of its own formation base in Korea rather than as a simple building chronology. The blessing recorded in 1984 and the elevation of the Korean mission to an independent region in 1985 indicate a period in which organization and formation structures were being strengthened together. The official identification of the current Pajang-dong site as a novitiate supports at least the continuity of the role of “Jesuit novitiate formation in Suwon” to the present.