Daesan Catholic Church

History & origins

The Catholic community in the Daesan area began to take a more definite form in May 1967 around Daesan Mission Station, then under Seosan Dongmun Parish. With guidance from an assistant priest of Dongmun Parish, catechesis for inquirers was held at Daesan Middle School, and the community initially used school facilities for its gatherings. The following year, through a donation of land by a local Catholic and the efforts of the mission-station leader, about 1,200 pyeong of land was secured and a concrete mission building of about 30 pyeong was erected, giving the community a permanent place of faith apart from the school hall.

The community remained a mission station for roughly two decades. As Daesan developed into a coastal industrial area and population growth was anticipated, plans were made to establish an independent parish. On 19 August 1989, Daesan was separated from Seosan Dongmun Parish and established as a parish. In December of the same year, the new parish celebrated its first baptisms, marking the beginning of its independent pastoral life.

Facilities were expanded step by step as the parish grew. A prefabricated church was completed at the end of 1991; in 1992 additional buildings were provided for Sunday-school classrooms and a credit-union office; and a rectory was built in 1993. Around the same period, a credit union and Catholic associations in industrial workplaces were organized, reflecting the effort of lay Catholics to connect faith with daily life in a rapidly industrializing area.

This development shows that Daesan Parish emerged not simply through an administrative division of territory, but through the gradual maturation of a community that began in a school hall and a mission station and then built an independent parish structure in response to industrial and demographic change.