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About this place
Sangnam-dong Catholic Church is the parish church of a Catholic parish in the Masan district of the Diocese of Masan, serving the Catholic community in and around Sangnam-dong in Masanhappo-gu, Changwon. The parish is dedicated to the Korean Martyrs, and its identity as a church founded in remembrance of the centenary of the Byeongin Persecution continues to make the witness of the martyrs an important spiritual marker of the parish.
Sangnam-dong Catholic Church has served the faithful with Mass, the sacraments, faith formation, and community life in a neighborhood where the older urban center meets residential districts. Although it is now one local parish among many, it initially covered a broad territory and became an important mother parish in the growth of the Church in northeastern Masan, with several later parishes separated from it. The church therefore holds together the everyday faith life of its local community and the memory of parish expansion in the wider Masan area.
History & origins
The immediate background to the establishment of Sangnam-dong Parish took shape in the autumn of 1963, when Bishop John Choi Jae-seon of the Diocese of Busan visited Namseong-dong Catholic Church. Local leaders and Catholics asked for a new church in the old Masan area, and Bishop Choi promised to contribute part of the construction cost if the faithful offered one million decades of the Rosary. Prayer and fundraising followed, and in January 1965 the community purchased more than 600 pyeong of land in the area of Sangnam 2-dong, then known as Sangwon-dong, on the former site of Masan Commercial School and a match factory.
In October 1966, the council of the Diocese of Masan decided that a church commemorating the centenary of the Byeongin Persecution would be built there. On December 28 of the same year, Sangnam-dong was formally established as a parish separated from Namseong-dong Parish, with Fr. Kim Deok-sin, Joseph, as its first pastor. At first there were only two wooden buildings formerly used by the match factory, so Sunday Mass had to be celebrated at Namseong-dong during the winter while the faithful continued to work toward construction of a permanent church.
On May 11, 1968, the new church was dedicated in a liturgy presided over by Bishop Stephen Kim Sou-hwan of the Diocese of Masan. Sangnam-dong Parish then covered a territory broad enough to include areas that later became several separate parishes. As the city grew, Yangdeok-dong, Sanho-dong, Hoewon-dong, Seokjeon-dong, and Jungdong in Changwon were among the parishes successively separated from it.
The history of Sangnam-dong Catholic Church thus begins with a prayer movement intended to remember the witness of the Korean martyrs and continues through a period in which urban expansion led to the birth of several new parishes. Its foundation as a centenary memorial of the Byeongin Persecution and its early experience of serving a wide territory define its historical place within the Catholic Church in Masan.
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Building information
- Passenger elevators: 0
- 3 above-ground floors · 0 below-ground floors
- Approved for use in 1968
- Total floor area: 1,411㎡
Building-register record · · Source
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Sources and updates
- Information Status
- Official
- Source
- Diocese source
- Data freshness
- Fresh
- Last updated
- Source
- Francisco Diary
Diocese
Masan Diocese (Diocese of Masan)
Official website: https://cathms.kr
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