Hamyang Catholic Church

History & origins

Catholic evangelization in the Hamyang area took on a more organized form after Peter No Su-jeon, who had lived as a refugee from the Byeongin Persecution, settled in Jukjang village in Daedeok-ri, Hamyang-eup, in 1907. He brought Choe Hak-jo into the Church and worked with him in evangelization. In 1909, Father Stephen Kim Yang-hong of Jinan Parish, which then had jurisdiction over Hamyang, established a mission station at Jukjang. The home of Andrew Choe Hak-jo, the first mission-station leader, served as the first gathering place, and the community later acquired school property and buildings as it grew.

As the mission community expanded, Bishop Florian Demange, the first Vicar Apostolic of Daegu, established Hamyang Parish in April 1913 and appointed Father Bartholomew Lee Sang-hwa as its first pastor. Diocesan records describe it as the first new parish founded after the establishment of the Apostolic Vicariate of Daegu. The early Catholics acquired a traditional building associated with the local Confucian school and eventually began plans for a purpose-built church.

Under Father Park Jae-su, construction of a church began in 1937, and a Gothic-style church was completed in 1940. Because its location was inconvenient for pastoral work, however, the community later prepared to move again, and a second church was built on the present site in 1970. The history was therefore not one of remaining fixed in a single building, but of reshaping parish space as settlement patterns and pastoral needs changed.

Ahead of the parish centenary, construction of another church began in 2011, and the centenary church was completed the following year. During construction, Sunday Mass was celebrated in the town office auditorium and various parish meetings continued in private homes as the community carried the project together. These repeated phases of building and relocation show how Catholics in Hamyang sustained their parish through changing times.