Hwangri Chapel

History & origins

Catholics in the Hwangni area first appear clearly in the surviving official record in an 1897 report by Father Paul Oudot. The report lists seventeen Catholics and three catechumens. Located along routes linking Goseong, Tongyeong, and Geoje, Hwangni became an important intermediate point within the travel network used by early missionaries visiting scattered Catholic communities.

After the local Catholic settlement became established, Hwangni briefly grew beyond the status of a mission station and became the center of a parish. A parish was established there on June 16, 1935, with Father Paul Sin Sun-gyun as its first pastor. Although Hwangni then lay administratively in Gwangdo-myeon of Tongyeong-gun, its social and Catholic ties with believers in the Goseong area were strong, and diocesan historical material describes it as effectively serving as the first parish center for the Goseong region.

As transportation shifted from sea routes to roads and Catholics in Goseong-eup continued to request that the parish center be moved, the focus changed again. On May 14, 1939, the transfer of Hwangni Parish to Goseong-eup was announced, and Hwangni returned to mission-station status. The parish functions moved to Goseong, while the mission station remained as a place preserving the memory of the earlier Catholic settlement and parish period.

This brief period as a parish clarifies Hwangni's distinctive historical character. Today it is a small mission station under Goseong Parish, yet its continuity from an early Catholic settlement through a parish center and back to a mission station links it directly with the local early history of the Diocese of Masan.