Cheongi Mission Chapel

History & origins

The Catholic Church directory in Korea records the establishment of Cheonggi Gongso in 1965. The Encyclopedia of Korean Catholicism, in its history of Yeongyang Parish, states that the first pastor, Father Noël, built the Cheonggi mission station in July 1966. These records can be read as referring to different stages—the establishment of the mission community and the provision of an actual chapel building—and together they show that the Catholic community and its liturgical space took shape in Cheonggi during the mid-1960s.

Cheonggi Gongso also became closely connected with the history of the Catholic Farmers’ Movement in the Diocese of Andong in the late 1970s. The diocesan historical archive records that priests of the diocese inspected damage to seed potatoes in Cheonggi-myeon in January 1979. It also lists the abduction on May 5 of Oh Won-chun Alphonso, head of the Cheonggi branch of the Catholic Farmers’ Movement, as a major event in diocesan history. The Encyclopedia of Korean Catholicism likewise explains that the incident arose from Oh’s leadership in a campaign seeking compensation for losses suffered by potato farmers. The diocesan bulletin explains that in 1978 farmers suffered serious losses when seed potatoes supplied through the county and agricultural cooperative failed to sprout properly, and that Oh Won-chun led a compensation campaign that succeeded in obtaining compensation. After he testified in 1979 that he had been abducted and assaulted, the issue grew beyond a local agricultural dispute into a social incident to which the diocese and the wider Korean Church responded.

This episode shows that the history of Cheonggi Gongso was not limited to the construction of a chapel and liturgical life. Through this small mission community, the livelihood and rights of rural Catholics, together with the Church’s agricultural ministry, became connected with modern Korean Catholic history. Although the composition of the community has changed over time, the solidarity between long-established members and newer return-to-farm Catholics described in current diocesan materials shows continuity in the way Cheonggi Gongso has shared faith and daily life amid the realities of rural society.