Territorial Abbey of Tokwon

Territorial Abbey of Tŏkwon Territorialis Abbatia Tokvonensis 천주교 덕원자치수도원구
Location
Country	North Korea
Ecclesiastical province	Immediately subject to the Holy See
Metropolitan	Tokwon (near Wonsan)
Statistics
Population - Catholics	unknown
Churches	none
Information
Denomination	Roman Catholic
Rite	Roman Rite
Established	12 January 1940
Cathedral	Tokwon Abbey of St. Benedict
Patron saint	St. Benedict
Secular priests	none
Current leadership
Pope	Pope Francis
Abbot	Apostolic Administrator Abbot Blasio Park OSB
Map
Territorial Abbacy of Tokwon

Tokwon Abbey was a Benedictine monastery of the Congregation of Missionary Benedictines of Saint Ottilien, located near the town of Wonsan in what is now North Korea. Founded as a monastic mission in Seoul, the community transferred to Tokwon in the 1920s to take charge of the newly created Apostolic Vicariate of Wonsan. The persecution of Christians in North Korea since 1949 made any church activity in the abbacy impossible. However the Territorial Abbacy of Tokwon is formally still kept as one of the few remaining territorial abbeys within the Catholic Church.

In February 1909, German monks of the Congregation of Missionary Benedictines of Saint Ottilien arrived in Seoul. Following the model used in their African monasteries, lay brothers established a carpentry shop and a trade school, while priests busied themselves with pastoral work and education. With the arrival of more monks from Europe, the monastery was raised to the status of an abbey on May 15, 1913. Fr Boniface Sauer, OSB, became the community's first abbot.

When the Vicariate Apostolic of Seoul was divided in 1920, the monks of the Abbey of St Benedict took charge of the newly created Vicariate Apostolic of Wonsan. By 1927, the original monastery in Seoul was closed, the community of around forty monks having relocated to Tokwon. In 1927-1928, the monks built a minor and major seminary to train indigenous secular priests, while from 1929–1931 a church in the neo-Romanesque style was constructed. Around this time, the community began to cultivate local monastic vocations.

In 1940, the Territorial Abbacy of Tokwon was created, covering the cities of Wonsan (where Tokwon is located) and Munchon and the counties Anbyon, Chonnae and Kowon. As Abbot of Tokwon, Boniface Sauer became the ordinary of the territorial abbacy, while at the same time he was charged with being the apostolic administrator of Hamhung apostolic vicariate. As World War II came to an end, the Abbey of Tokwon fell under the control of Soviet occupying forces. Though the monastery was for a time used to quarter soldiers, eventually monastic life was permitted to resume. By the time Soviet forces withdrew in 1949, there were around 60 monks at the Abbey of Tokwon (25 of them Korean) and around 20 sisters of the Tutzing Congregation in a monastery in nearby Wonsan.

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