Dopyeong Mission

History & origins

Dopyeong Mission Station was established in November 1966. Cheongsong Parish had been established in 1965, and pastoral structures were expanding to care for Catholics in the southern rural part of the county. Dopyeong Mission Station took shape in that context as a local base for Catholic community life in Hyeondong-myeon.

As the years passed, efforts were made to replace and improve the mission-station facilities. On February 17, 2008, a new church was blessed in a ceremony presided over by Bishop John Chrysostom Kwon Hyeok-ju of Andong. On a site of about 1,600 square meters, the new complex combined a chapel of about 200 square meters with an education center of about 145 square meters, bringing worship and community education into one place. Local Catholics raised construction funds by selling products such as Cheongsong red-pepper powder and Yeongyang red-pepper paste at Catholic churches and also sought help from believers in other regions.

The construction of the new church was more than a replacement of a building; it was a collective effort to sustain a rural Catholic community. At the time, the diocesan bishop highlighted the community’s cooperation in dedicating a new sacred space despite the wider decline of rural mission stations caused by population loss. The history of Dopyeong can therefore be understood as that of a community formed in the 1960s and sustained through the voluntary efforts of its members to renew the place in which their faith was lived.