Little Brothers of Jesus

History & origins

The Little Brothers of Jesus were founded in 1933 by priests seeking to live according to the example of Saint Charles de Foucauld. The community began in Korea in 1969 when French brothers arrived at the invitation of the Archbishop of Seoul, and it later established small fraternities in different regions where contemplative life was joined with ordinary labor.

The Korean Catholic Encyclopedia records that a fraternity was established in Gwangmyeong in 1984 and moved to Ansan three years later as the Banwol industrial complex developed. This provides a direct historical line for the present Suwon branch in Ansan and also fits the congregation's spirituality of living the Nazareth life within industrial and working-class environments.

The Diocese of Suwon later described the Ansan fraternity as a community located in a residential neighborhood with many foreign residents. Instead of a conspicuous monastery, the brothers live in an ordinary multi-family building and share the same environment as their neighbors. The history since the move to Ansan thus shows how place and spirituality have developed together.

The move from Gwangmyeong to Ansan is better understood not as a search for a larger institutional complex but as a choice to live closer to the labor realities of a newly developing industrial city. Later diocesan descriptions of the Wongok-dong fraternity as a community in a residential area with many migrant residents show that this orientation continued. Because the continuity between the change of place and the congregation’s spirituality is relatively clear, this branch has a local history of its own that can be distinguished from the broader history of the congregation.