Miwon Church

History & origins

The roots of Miwon Parish lie in the former Seorak Mission Station. When Cheongpyeong Parish was established in 1953, Seorak came under its jurisdiction, but for many years the community had no separate mission chapel and continued to use private homes as its meeting place until 1980. Bishop Thomas Park took an interest in the situation, and on May 17, 1992, he celebrated an outdoor fellowship Mass with Catholics originally from the area, beginning an effort to raise funds for a permanent site for the mission community.

Through the efforts of local Catholics and benefactors, land was secured and a mission chapel was built on November 20, 1993. This chapel gave the Seorak community a stable place to gather and became the physical basis from which the long-standing mission community could eventually develop into an independent parish.

On September 14, 2008, the Diocese of Chuncheon elevated Seorak Mission Station to parish status and placed it under the patronage of St. Paul the Apostle. The new parish took the name “Miwon,” an old name for the locality that the diocesan history says had been used since the Goryeo period. The church was dedicated on September 28 of the same year. The sequence shows a small community that once gathered in private homes, built its own chapel through sustained effort, and ultimately matured into an independent parish.