Subun Mission

History & origins

Catholic life around Subun-ri can be traced back to the mid-nineteenth century. Diocesan sources record that Fr. Choe Yang-eop visited the Jangsu area around 1850 and that Catholics were already living in and around Subun-ri before the Byeongin Persecution. After the persecution, Catholics fleeing into the mountains formed Catholic villages, and records from after 1878 describe missionaries hiding in a nearby cave and providing formation for seminarians there.

In the mid-1910s, Fr. Lee Sang-hwa of Hamyang Parish and Fr. Kim Yang-hong of Eoeun-dong Parish prepared a mission hall and a place for priests to stay in Subun-ri as an intermediate base for evangelizing the neighboring area. On November 8, 1918, Bishop Demange presided over the blessing of the mission station, whose patron was St. Stephen. A school called Sohwa Academy was also established there for the education of local children.

Subun Mission Station was elevated to parish status in 1926, but became a mission station again in 1954 when the pastoral structure of the Jangsu area was reorganized. Through these changes, Subun continued to serve as an important pastoral base for Catholics in the Jangsu region.

The mission church was designated as a National Registered Cultural Heritage property on June 18, 2005. As the aging building required major conservation work, it was dismantled and repaired, and a new blessing was held on April 13, 2013. This conservation process helped preserve Subun as a place where the faith history of an old Catholic village and the architecture of an early hanok-style Catholic church can be encountered together.