공주중동 성당

History & origins

The immediate history of Gongju Jungdong Parish begins on May 8, 1897. According to Catholic shrine records, the original Gongju Parish was established by separation from Hapdeok and Gongseri parishes, at a time when there were only about twenty Catholics in the town of Gongju. Its first pastor, Father Guinand, initially stayed at the Yogol mission station, then acquired a site on the hill at Gukgogae and moved there on June 28 of the same year. By establishing a place of worship and teaching the faith there, he created the first substantial Catholic pastoral base within the town. Gongju City further explains that a hanok-style church was built in 1898, providing a firmer foundation for mission.

The present church began to take shape when Father Mark Choi Jong-cheol designed it himself, using Yakhyeon Catholic Church in Seoul as a reference, and began construction in 1934. In 1936 a Latin-cross church with a Gothic bell tower, along with a presbytery and convent, was completed, and the church was dedicated on May 12, 1937. The building marks the transition from the earlier period of worship in a hanok church to a modern Catholic architectural complex in Gongju. Of the facilities constructed at that time, the church and presbytery remain today as tangible traces of the parish's history.

As the parish grew, its territory was divided several times. Yugu Parish was separated in 1968, and in September 1982 Gongju Gyodong Parish was established from part of its territory, after which the older Gongju Parish adopted the name “Gongju Jungdong.” In 1999, Gongju Jungdong and Gongju Gyodong also contributed territory to the establishment of Gongju Singwan-dong Parish. These divisions show how the broad territory once served by the old Gongju Parish was gradually subdivided as Catholic communities grew in different parts of the city and surrounding area.

In 1997, marking the centenary of the parish and the sixtieth anniversary of the church building, a major restoration was undertaken with the aim of returning the church as closely as possible to its original appearance, and the volume A Hundred Years of Jungdong Parish was published. The church and presbytery were then registered as Chungcheongnam-do Monument No. 142 on July 25, 1998. This sequence of developments shows how Gongju Jungdong grew from a small late-nineteenth-century missionary base into a mother parish for the region and then into a historic site preserving its modern church and presbytery.