With the rise of Communism in China and North Korea, the monasteries of the Congregation of Missionary Benedictines of Saint Ottilien in Tokwon and Yanji were dissolved.

Upon hearing that they had formed a nascent monastic community in Busan, Archabbot Chrysostomus Schmid of St Ottilien ordered Fr Timothy Bitterli, a Swiss Missionary Benedictine who at the time resided at St Paul's Abbey near Newton, New Jersey, to relocate to South Korea in order to assist the community of Korean monks.

In 1971, Haas was succeeded by Fr Placidus Ri, who thus became the first ethnically Asian superior of a Missionary Benedictine monastery.

Under Abbot Placidus, a new abbey church was constructed in 1975, and the monastery's printing and publishing endeavors were expanded and modernized.

Abbot Simon is assisted in his duties by Fr Polycarp Kim, prior, and Bro Andrea Jeon, subprior.