Moseo Mission Station

History & origins

The Catholic directory of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea records the establishment of Moseo Mission Station in 1964. A feature in the monthly Legio Mariae relates that in 1968 Fr. Joseph Song Man-hyeop, the third pastor of Hwaeryeong Parish and a Benedictine known as Fr. Albin, provided the mission-station building. A donation from the German benefactor Josef Grlebl was used to purchase land and build an education hall, while local Catholics contributed support and labor. This shows that the establishment of the community and the construction of the present church building took place at different stages.

In 1969, Fr. André Bouton added three murals inside the church. The diocesan record lists “The Holy Family,” “The Risen Jesus,” and “Praise the Lord, All Peoples!”—works that gave visual form to biblical and liturgical themes within the mission-station space. The Legio Mariae article also reports that the community had grown enough for fifty-three people to receive Confirmation on June 6, 1969, in a liturgy presided over by Abbot Odo.

Industrialization and rural migration in the 1970s led to a decline in the number of Catholics at the mission station. A 2019 feature described renewed community activity as Catholics returning to or settling in the countryside joined the community and a new Legion of Mary group was organized. The history of Moseo Mission Station thus brings together its establishment and church construction in the 1960s, the arrival of sacred art, and the continuing participation of Catholics who sustained the community through changes in the rural population.