Cheongri Mission Station

History & origins

The Catholic Church directory in Korea records Cheongri Gongso as having been established in 1954. This means that a Catholic mission community had already formed in the Cheongri area before the Diocese of Andong itself was erected. As parish and mission structures expanded in the Sangju area, the Cheongri community gradually took its place within the developing pastoral network. Across the large pastoral territory around Sangju at that time, Catholics who lived far from a parish church continued liturgical and catechetical life through local mission stations, and Cheongri became one of these local communities.

The Encyclopedia of Korean Catholicism, in its history of Namseong-dong Parish, records that the Cheongri mission station was completed in 1964 during a period of growth in the number of Catholics and the establishment of new mission stations. Read together with the 1954 establishment date in the national directory, this suggests a sequence in which the community was first established and then acquired a more stable chapel and base of activity in the 1960s. When the Diocese of Andong was erected in 1969, the area became part of the pastoral structure of the new diocese. The dates 1954 and 1964 therefore need not be treated as conflicting foundation dates; they are more naturally read as records of two different stages, the formation of the community and the completion of a dedicated mission-station building.

The diocesan historical archive records the establishment of Oksan Parish in December 1994, and recent diocesan bulletins identify Cheongri Gongso as a mission community connected with Oksan Parish. The exact date of the transfer of jurisdiction cannot be determined from the public sources reviewed, but Cheongri Gongso clearly continues today within the Oksan Parish community. Its history thus shows a small local Catholic community formed in the 1950s that has endured in the form of a mission station through subsequent changes in diocesan and parish organization. Public sources do not establish the exact date on which Cheongri Gongso came under the present jurisdiction after Oksan Parish was erected, so no year has been asserted here. The 2026 diocesan bulletin, however, directly shows the current Oksan Parish–Cheongri Gongso relationship, making the present pastoral affiliation clear.