Cheongdo Cathedral

History & origins

Organized mission-station ministry in the Cheongdo area is recorded as beginning around 1930, when Hayang Parish established a mission station at Eunhaengjeong in Hwayang-myeon. Around 1940 another mission station was set up in Gosudong, Cheongdo-eup; it was first under Miryang Parish and, from around 1945, under Gyeongsan Parish. As Catholic communities developed in several villages and the number of faithful grew, the need to establish an independent parish for Cheongdo became stronger.

Father Peter Park Chun-taek, pastor of Gyeongsan Parish, purchased the former Cheongdo county-office property and buildings in 1961 to provide a base for the new parish. On April 18 of that year, Cheongdo Mission Station was separated from Gyeongsan and raised to parish status. A new building for Topyeong Mission Station was blessed in 1963, and as the parish church became too small for the growing community, a new church was built in 1973.

A convent was built in 1986, and in 2002 renovations included work on the kindergarten, expansion of the church interior, and repairs to the ceiling and roof. This chronology shows that Cheongdo Parish developed not only through construction of a parish church, but by expanding a network of mission stations and facilities for education and religious life that supported Catholic ministry across the region.