Jaeunsa and Venerable Joju Sunim

In 1990 the future abbot was ordained as a monk at Haeinsa monastery, and the very next year, in 1991, he was sent to the Soviet Union — arriving in time to witness its collapse and the independence of its republics.

In 1992 he became the first head of external relations at the Association of Korean Culture and one of the founders of a movement to revive Korean culture. That same year he organised the first Dano festival ever held in the Soviet Union, explaining its origins to those who came. Then came the weddings, the funerals, the sixtieth birthdays — the Korean rites he helped to preserve and pass on, and a book on those traditions published through the Association.

Seeing the state of medicine after the Soviet collapse, he trained in traditional Korean medicine and acupuncture and spent years treating patients free of charge.

Jaeunsa came into being because Venerable Seongcheol of Baengnyeonam hermitage, at Haeinsa monastery, gave the Buddha statues and blessed its founding.

In 1992 the temple was formally registered as a religious organisation and placed under the care of Haeinsa. In those years Joju Sunim himself was working mainly in Russia and Ukraine.

After Seongcheol's passing he was left alone to carry on Buddhist work in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia. In 1997 the Tashkent temple, then administered by Haeinsa, burned to the ground in an arson attack made possible by inadequate oversight, and its registration as a religious organisation was annulled.

At the request of local Buddhists and of Haeinsa, he took the temple back and rebuilt it. Overseas mission held little interest for the Korean orders, and local people knew almost nothing of Buddhism — the money to keep the temple running had to be earned by hand, down to shuttle trading.

In years when the Soviet attitude to religion was still very much alive, he worked patiently for understanding and common ground around traditional Korean culture: supporting the Korean theatre and helping with its productions, leading funeral rites, weddings and birthday celebrations.

He built working relationships with the local UNESCO bodies and the women's committee, and gives regular support to veterans' associations and children's homes. Since 2015 he has served by official invitation on the Committee on Religious Affairs under the Cabinet of Ministers as the representative of Buddhism — and maintains good relations with every faith community in the country.

To defend the rights of the Koryo-saram, the Korean community of Uzbekistan, he was a founder of the Association of Koreans in Uzbekistan, sat on its first board, and helped to publish a Korean-language newspaper.

Seeing that Korean weddings were being held in a Japanese park, he petitioned the Korean presidential office and the National Assembly and negotiated with Seoul's parks authority. Turned down, he made the case for a Korean Park to Korea's ambassador in Uzbekistan and worked alongside him to see it built. At the suggestion of Sergey Pak, chairman of the Association of Korean Culture, he petitioned for a Korean Cultural Centre as well. In the end Tashkent got both the park and the cultural centre.

With the chairman of the Council for Peaceful Unification in Central Asia, he provided medical and social care at the Korean retirement home in Turkestan.

From 2006 to 2020 he represented the Jogye Order at the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions in Kazakhstan, and in 2006 he was chosen to head the Buddhist delegations. For this work he was twice honoured with awards from the President of Kazakhstan.