Sachang-ri Mission Station

History & origins

The roots of Sachang-ri Mission Station go back to around 1959. A 2015 diocesan account states that the community began with a group organized by Park Bok-su, John Bosco, after he completed military service in a unit stationed at Sachang-ri. In September 1963, the community received diocesan approval and was formally established under the name Sachang-ri Mission Station.

In 1974 the mission station was incorporated into a nearby military parish, and after the military ordinariate’s Igija Parish was established in 1980, local Catholics attended Sunday Mass there. Independent mission-station activity remained weak for many years. A turning point came with a pastoral visit by Bishop Chang Ik in 1998, followed by the arrival of a missionary in 1999, after which the faithful began gathering again and reorganized the community.

As the number of faithful grew, the old mission-station building became inadequate, and a decision was made in 2013 to construct a new one. Parishioners visited numerous parishes to seek support and raised funds by selling agricultural products they had grown themselves. The new mission station was completed in 2015 and blessed by Bishop Lucas Kim Woon-hoe. Sachang-ri’s history is therefore a story of a community weakened by changes in border-region and military pastoral structures but later able to rebuild a stable local Catholic presence.