Gwaemok Mission Station

History & origins

The history of Gomoek Mission Station begins in 1961, when teacher Hwang Taek-gyu was assigned to Gomoek Elementary School and began evangelizing together with his family. With the support of Father Leo Do Gwang-seok of Muju Parish, Catholics established a local base, and a reconstruction middle school was also opened that year. The first Sunday Mass was celebrated in April 1964, and sixteen people were baptized that year. The Catholic Church directory likewise records April 1964 as the establishment period of the mission station.

The present mission-station building took shape in the 1970s. In 1971 construction of a hall began with a building donation from Maria Kim Yun-im of Seoul and a design by Father Alwin Schmid. In April 1973 Bishop Kim Jae-deok presided over the blessing. Schmid designed the interior so that the congregation gathered around the altar from two sides and provided separate entrances for men and women, combining the post-conciliar liturgical spirit with elements of Korean tradition.

In 1982 the building was repaired with donations from mission-station members. As the rural population and Catholic community later declined, activity at the station gradually weakened, and a 2025 diocesan pilgrimage guide records that Gomoek is now closed and unused. Its history therefore moves from an active period of evangelization, education, and community building to a present in which the building and its story themselves preserve the memory of faith.