Sangsin Mission Station

History & origins

The history of Sangsin Mission Station begins with the establishment of Sangsinwon, a settlement community for people affected by Hansen’s disease. In 1956, Benedictine Father Arnold Lenhard of Waegwan Abbey, newly assigned to Jeomchon Parish, encountered people with Hansen’s disease living in extremely difficult conditions in the Nongam area and founded Sangsinwon. With support from Waegwan Abbey, 33 people initially settled there, and about ten years later the population had grown to roughly 180.

From 1956 to 1986, Waegwan Abbey carried pastoral responsibility in much of northern Gyeongsang and devoted particular effort to treatment and self-reliance in settlements for people affected by Hansen’s disease. At Sangsinwon, support came not only from Father Lenhard but also from Father Ernesto Siebertz, Sister Diomedes Meffert of the Missionary Benedictine Sisters of Tutzing, the Damian Dermatology Clinic in Yeongju, and other collaborators. Catholic life grew within a broader network of medical, welfare, and livelihood support.

The present Sangsin chapel was built and dedicated in 1985. A commemorative stone beside the mission station records that the building was made possible by assistance from the Catholic organization for Hansen’s disease work, the Damian Dermatology Clinic in Yeongju, Father Arnold, and the cooperation of residents, and bears the date September 7, 1985. The size of the church reflects the vitality and scale of the Sangsinwon community at that time.

Sangsin’s history is an example of pastoral work in which settlement, medical care, and economic self-reliance for people affected by Hansen’s disease developed together with the formation of a Catholic community. The path from the founding of Sangsinwon in 1956 to the dedication of the chapel in 1985 makes the site a witness not merely to a church building, but to a community of life created by residents and missionaries together. Mission at Sangsinwon did not begin by building a church and then gathering residents. Assistance with settlement, treatment, and self-reliance came first, and a Catholic community grew within that shared life. The dedication of the church in 1985 was therefore the architectural fruit of a community already formed over decades. The commemorative stone’s explicit mention of resident cooperation also shows that the chapel was not created through outside assistance alone.