Namok Cathedral

History & origins

Nammok Parish was established as a parish of the Diocese of Busan on September 23, 2002. The Catholic Church directory in Korea records this date as the parish’s foundation, and the current diocesan parish directory identifies Nammok as an independent parish in the Boksan District. With its establishment, the Catholic community of Nammok gained a distinct parish structure in which it could continue Mass and the sacraments, catechesis, and organized community life.

After the parish had begun to take root, inviting new Catholics and proclaiming the Gospel remained important communal tasks. The Diocese of Busan designated 2012 as the “Year of Inviting New Believers” and encouraged missionary activity in its parishes, and Nammok Parish took part through evangelization led by its own parishioners. A diocesan report the following year records that the parish held a missionary-award ceremony during Mass and recognized parishioners who had worked during the year to lead catechumens into the Catholic community.

The record of these awards shows that, about a decade after its establishment, Nammok had moved beyond the initial work of organizing a new parish and was actively inviting others into the community. The fact that parishioners were publicly encouraged for their participation also provides a glimpse of how evangelization was connected with ordinary parish life rather than treated only as an occasional event.

The documented early history of Nammok Parish is relatively concise, but the establishment of an independent parish in 2002 and its evangelizing activity around 2012 show a clear movement from community formation toward broader participation by the faithful. The surviving records emphasize not changes to the church building but the work of forming a community and welcoming new Catholics, and these efforts became part of the foundation on which the later history of the parish developed.