Gomsil

History & origins

One of the earliest clear appearances of Gomsil in Church records is in Bishop Gustave Mutel’s diary entry of November 4, 1900. The entry notes that three families were living at Gomsil and that some of them received the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The 1900–1901 pastoral statistics of Wonju Parish recorded seventeen Catholics, and the Diocese of Chuncheon explains that a mission station had formed at Gomsil around this period.

Fr. Jeong Gyu-ha of Pungsuwon Parish later visited Gomsil frequently, and as the Catholic population grew, the need for a resident priest and the establishment of a parish became increasingly pressing. Uhm Ju-eon, who served as leader of the mission-station community, worked for evangelization and the development of the community while requesting that a priest be assigned. In 1920 a mission station of substantial scale was established, and in September of that year Fr. Kim Yu-ryong arrived as the first pastor, elevating the Gomsil community into the first parish in the Chuncheon area.

The Gomsil mission-station building was destroyed during the Korean War but was rebuilt after the armistice. Much later, to preserve the historical value of the site, the Diocese of Chuncheon renovated the building in 2008. In 2009 it erected a monument inscribed “Cradle of the Diocese of Chuncheon” and designated the place a diocesan historic site. This preservation history shows that Gomsil has continued to serve not merely as the site of a former parish but as a place that communicates the memory of the early Catholic history of the Diocese of Chuncheon.