Sawoo-dong Catholic Church

History & origins

Sau-dong Parish was established in January 2010 through a division from Gimpo Parish. The Catholic Church directory in Korea records its foundation date as January 19, 2010. In 2011, the parish boundaries were adjusted so that all areas of Gimpo bearing the name Sau-dong that had previously been served by Gimpo and Pungmu-dong parishes were transferred to Sau-dong Parish. This shows how the pastoral territory continued to be refined after the new parish had been established, in order to correspond more closely to the actual local community.

In May 2010, shortly after the parish was founded, a Marian statue modeled on Our Lady of Lourdes in France was installed. Instead of using the usual form of a Lourdes grotto, the parish placed the statue inside a structure shaped like the bow of a ship, intended to symbolize Our Lady, Star of the Sea, the patroness of the Diocese of Incheon. Over time, the statue became both a place of communal prayer and a focus for the parish’s hopes for a new church.

A 2021 report stated that, more than ten years after the parish was founded, construction of a new church had still been delayed by unresolved urban-planning issues and the community was using a temporary structure. During that long period of waiting, parishioners continued to pray before the Marian statue for the new church. Later sources indicate that the parish entered a stage of using temporary space while a new church was being prepared, but because construction conditions can change over time, this account does not fix a detailed current schedule. The central historical arc is the parish’s independence from Gimpo in 2010, the adjustment of its territory, the establishment of a shared symbol of prayer, and the long process of securing a permanent church space.