약목 성당

History & origins

Catholic faith began to take root in the Yakmok area around 1920. According to the Korean Catholic Encyclopedia, Kim Hyo-saeng moved to Yakmok and began sharing the faith, planting the beginnings of a local Catholic community. By around 1928 there were about twenty Catholics. In this early period, the community continued its religious life through homes and small gatherings without a dedicated church or mission-station building.

The missionary activity of Benedictine monks who settled in Waegwan in 1952 also influenced the growth of the Yakmok community. For a time, Catholics rented the Yakmok civic high school for Mass, but in December 1961 they built a mission hall at the site of the present church. As the community grew to more than six hundred Catholics, the basis was created for becoming an independent parish.

The Korean Catholic Encyclopedia records that Yakmok was established as a quasi-parish on October 25, 1973 and became a full parish on November 3 of the same year. The Archdiocese of Daegu’s current parish page uses October 25 as the official founding date. The parish subsequently expanded its church in 1982 and invited the Sisters of St. Paul of Chartres in 1985, strengthening its liturgical, educational, and pastoral foundations.

As the Catholic population continued to grow, a new-church building committee was organized in 1994. Construction began in July 1995, and the new church was completed in December of that year. Archbishop Paul Ri Moun-hi presided at its dedication on April 14, 1996, while the former church was repurposed for education. In 1998, the parish marked its twenty-fifth anniversary by publishing a parish history. Yakmok’s history thus shows how a small rural Catholic community developed through Benedictine missionary work and lay participation into a mission station, parish, and eventually a community with a new permanent church.