Chopyeong (Jun Parish) Catholic Church

History & origins

The Catholic community in Chopyeong was established as an outstation in September 1966. In 1978 it obtained an outstation chapel, giving Catholics across Chopyeong-myeon a stable place to gather for Mass and parish life. For many years it remained an outstation of Jincheon Parish and served as a local Catholic center connecting the villages of the area.

As the old chapel aged, construction of a new church began in 2020. Work started in April, and about eight months later a new church building and a community hall with a priest's residence had been completed. On December 11, Bishop Gabriel Chang Bong-hun blessed the new church. The Catholic Peace Newspaper described the Chopyeong community as one that had continued to grow within the diocese's pastoral system for outstations, with the new church marking a further stage in its local settlement.

The official Diocese of Cheongju page records November 30, 2021, as the establishment date of the present Chopyeong church. Together with the bishops' conference directory, which currently labels it “Chopyeong (quasi-parish),” this shows a line of development from an outstation founded in the 1960s, through the construction of a new church, to a quasi-parish structure in 2021. The history illustrates how a long-standing rural outstation gradually acquired a more stable liturgical and pastoral base within the Diocese of Cheongju.