Eunyang Faith Historical Site Museum

History & origins

The history of the exhibition hall begins with the history of the building itself. Eonyang Parish began construction of a new church in 1928 and also built a rectory as part of the project. According to National Heritage records, the church and rectory were dedicated together on October 25, 1936. The rectory then served as a living and pastoral space for the parish, sharing in the long history of the Catholic community in Eonyang.

As time passed, the parish found a new use for the former rectory. The parish’s two-hundred-year history records that interior renovation work began in July 1989, while National Heritage records state that the building was remodeled and opened in 1990 as a “Faith Relics Exhibition Hall.” Parish records further give December 4, 1990 as the date of the blessing and opening of the exhibition space. A building once used as a priest’s residence thus became a place for preserving and presenting the history of local faith.

On September 4, 2004, Eonyang Catholic Church and the former rectory were registered together as National Registered Cultural Heritage. This recognized not only the exhibition function but also the architectural and historical value of the building itself. The fact that church and rectory survive as a pair makes it possible to understand both the liturgical space and the pastoral living space of the parish community of that period.

The present exhibition hall is therefore the result of combining preservation of the old rectory with the display of religious artifacts. By transforming a building once used by the parish community rather than removing it, the creation of the exhibition hall became part of a broader effort to transmit the Catholic history of Eonyang to later generations. The exhibition hall was therefore not created by constructing a separate museum and moving objects into it. Instead, an actual historical space of the parish was preserved and given a new function. As a result, visitors can encounter not only the religious objects themselves but also the physical environment of the parish in which those memories were formed and handed down.