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	Catholic Church
Rite	Roman Rite
Established	12 January 1940
Cathedral	Tokwon Abbey of St. Benedict
Patron saint	St. Benedict
Secular priests	none
Current leadership
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—including the torture and murder of dozens of men and women religious—made any church activity in the abbacy impossible.^[1][2] However the Territorial Abbacy of Tokwon is formally still kept as one of the few remaining territorial abbeys within the Catholic Church.^[3]