Suchul-ri Mission Station

History & origins

According to the weekly bulletin of the Diocese of Daejeon, a Catholic community was already present in Sucheolli, formerly also called Deureuni or Deukeun-ri, by 1900. It was then within the pastoral territory of Father Curiel, and sixty-five Catholics were recorded. The diocesan account also connects the area with descendants of Saint Thomas Son Ja-seon and Saint Luke Hwang Seok-du who took refuge and settled there after the persecutions. Sucheolli consequently became one of the mission-station communities that preserve the continuity of faith in Naepo after the era of persecution.

The community continued to develop in the twentieth century. A 1922 year-end report from Hapdeok Parish mentioned the catechetical education of the Catholics of Sucheolli, showing that organized religious life was already established. In the 1930s the community grew to more than one hundred believers and was described as a “mission village.” After the Korean War, additional Catholic families, including descendants of martyr saints, settled in the area and continued the mission-station tradition.

The present mission-station building dates from 1960. The diocesan bulletin records that timber was obtained from nearby woodland and a logging site in Daesul, and the building was constructed in a traditional Korean timber form with a thatched-roof appearance. When Sinryewon Parish was established in 1977, Sucheolli came under its pastoral care. Although rural depopulation later reduced the size of the community, both the building and its tradition of faith remained.

In 2014 the neglected building underwent major repairs and additional land around it was acquired and improved. Through this work, Sucheolli Mission Station has continued not merely as an old structure but as a place where the ordinary faith and architecture of a long-established Naepo Catholic community can still be encountered today.