Yongji Mission Station

History & origins

The beginnings of Yongji mission station are closely tied to displacement and resettlement after the Korean War. According to a diocesan feature on the mission station, refugees originally from Eunyul in Hwanghae Province reached the area after passing through Gunsan and established a new livelihood on land designated by the government as a resettlement farm for displaced people. Led by Catholics including Benedict Yi Byeong-geun, they reclaimed wasteland and developed farming and livestock work, while a Catholic community took shape alongside the settlement.

Despite difficult living conditions, the settlers maintained prayer and common faith life, and the mission station became their religious center. Diocesan material includes a record of a blessing ceremony for the mission station on September 19, 1982, confirming that the community had by then secured a dedicated place for its Catholic life. The site thus preserves the memory of people who had lost their homeland and made the Catholic faith a center of solidarity in a new settlement.

The mission building was later repaired as local needs changed. The diocesan account records exterior waterproofing work in November 2001 that altered the appearance of the original red-brick walls. Yongji remains a small community belonging to Sinpung Parish, but its history combines refugee experience, land reclamation, settlement, and faith. This makes the mission station a significant witness to Catholic life within a postwar rural resettlement community.