About this place
Bugok Mission Station is a Catholic mission station of the Diocese of Masan and is currently under the pastoral care of Namji Parish. It provides Catholics in the Bugok-myeon area of Changnyeong-gun with a nearby place to gather for prayer and liturgy without having to travel to the parish church. The current Catholic directory continues to list the community as the “Bugok” mission station, confirming its present ecclesial identity.
A distinctive feature of Bugok is the way the community developed within a hot-spring tourism area. Rather than remaining only a small meeting place, it came to have a comparatively substantial church and educational facilities. A 2009 Catholic Times report described the dedication of a new church for the Bugok community under the Namji mission-parish system and noted facilities designed to accommodate visiting Catholic families. Although it is administratively classified today as a mission station, it continues to sustain local Catholic life and to make the presence of the Church visible to visitors as well as residents.
History & origins
The exact date when Bugok Mission Station was first established, and the origins of its earliest Catholic community, cannot be determined from the public sources examined. By the 2000s, however, Bugok was being served together with the Namji and Yeongsan communities within the Diocese of Masan’s “Namji Mission Parish” system. Through this experiment, several mission communities were grouped under one pastoral structure so that Catholics in the mission stations could receive Mass and pastoral care more regularly.
Within that system, the Bugok community substantially improved its worship facilities. On April 23, 2009, Bishop Ahn Myeong-ok presided at the dedication of a new church complex consisting of a church, convent, and education center. The record that the education center included accommodations for Catholic families visiting the hot-spring area shows that Bugok functioned not only for local Catholics but also with the spiritual needs of visitors in mind.
The pastoral structure was later reorganized, and the current Catholic directory classifies Bugok as a mission station under Namji Parish. The verifiable recent history of Bugok can therefore be described as the strengthening of a mission community within the mission-parish system, the dedication of a more stable church complex, and its subsequent place again under Namji Parish. The exact chronology of the earliest mission station should be added only when further official documentation becomes available.
Korean Catholic Places Encyclopedia
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- 한국천주교주교회의 온라인 주소록
Diocese
Masan Diocese (Diocese of Masan)
Official website: https://cathms.kr
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