Territorial abbey immediately subject to the Holy See Tŏkwon, Tŏkugen, North Korea
Territorial Abbey of Tŏkwon, Tŏkugen
Tokvonen(sis)
Latin Church
Territorial abbey of the Missionary Benedictines of Saint Ottilien near Wonsan, North Korea, raised to abbey status in 1913 and today the only territorial abbey outside Europe. The abbacy has been vacant since the late 1940s, with no priests or functioning Catholic communities in its territory since the 1950s. The Abbot of Waegwan in South Korea, Blasio Park Hyun-dong, O.S.B., serves as apostolic administrator but cannot visit North Korea.
On the map
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- Established
- 1913
- Catholics
- 5,370
- Priests
- 23
Parishes and churches
1 listed church in our records. Open a parish for Mass times, confession, directions and sources where recorded.
This is our recorded coverage, not an official diocesan parish count. Confirm service times with the parish before travelling.
The bishop
- Abbot
- Blasio Park
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The cathedral
Tokwon Abbey of St. Benedict stands in Tŏkwon, Tŏkugen, the church that holds the cathedra from which this see takes its name.
On what a cathedral is, see the cathedral; every see church on earth is gathered at the cathedrals.
History
Near the town of Wonsan, in what is now North Korea, stood Tokwon Abbey, a Benedictine monastery of the Congregation of Missionary Benedictines of Saint Ottilien. The community began as a monastic mission in Seoul and moved to Tokwon in the 1920s to take charge of the newly created Apostolic Vicariate of Wonsan. From 1949, the persecution of Christians in North Korea, which included the torture and murder of dozens of men and women religious, made any church activity in the abbacy impossible. Even so, the Territorial Abbacy of Tokwon is formally still retained as one of the few remaining territorial abbeys within the Catholic Church.