Donghyewon Mission

History & origins

Donghyewon Mission Station was established in 1952 within a community of people affected by Hansen’s disease. At a time when the turmoil of the Korean War continued, they had survived the war but still faced prejudice and exclusion from wider society. Within the settlement formed by people sharing the same suffering, the mission station became a place to pray together and console one another through faith.

As time passed, the community grew smaller and was increasingly forgotten by the outside world, yet efforts to preserve the mission station continued. In 2012, a professor and students from the Department of Environmental Design at Namseoul University created stained glass for the chapel as a volunteer talent-sharing project. Reflecting on the history and wounds of the community, they chose “healing and peace” as the theme.

The stained glass was installed in June and blessed on July 20 of the same year in the presence of diocesan representatives and Catholics from Donghyewon and Gochang Parish. The event, in which an old mission station in a Hansen’s disease settlement was remembered anew through art and solidarity, shows that Donghyewon’s history continues not only as a memory of isolation but also as a story of healing and communal support.