신녕 성당

History & origins

The organized Catholic community in Shinnyeong can be traced to 1922. According to the Korean Catholic Encyclopedia, Father Andrew Yu Heung-mo, then pastor of Yongpyeong Parish, established the Shinnyeong mission station with fifteen Catholics. A mission chapel was prepared in Maeyang-dong in 1933. After Yeongcheon Parish was established in 1936, the Shinnyeong mission community continued its life of faith under that parish.

As the mission community grew, Shinnyeong was elevated to a parish on May 7, 1965. Its first pastor, Father Leo Kim Uk-tae, organized the pastoral council and various devotional and apostolic groups, laying the foundations of the new parish. Construction of a church on the present site began in October 1970, and the building was completed on April 20, 1971. In May 1973, sisters of the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus were assigned to assist the parish’s pastoral work.

The parish’s ministry also extended to communities beyond the main church. A chapel for Hwasan mission station was built in 1989, supporting Catholics who lived at a distance from the parish center. This development reflects how Shinnyeong took shape as a rural parish caring for both its central church and an outlying mission community.

As the existing church aged, preparations for a new church began in 1996. Parishioners continued repairs and fundraising, and a groundbreaking ceremony for a new church was held in March 2000. The history of Shinnyeong thus runs from a small mission station to an independent parish that gradually established the spaces needed for worship and pastoral care at both the parish church and its mission station.