Ssangbaek Mission

History & origins

The exact first founding date of Ssangbaek Mission Station is not given in the available sources, but the Korean Catholic Encyclopedia records that when Hapcheon Parish was established on May 22, 1932, “Ssangbaek Mission Station in Ssangbaek-myeon” was already among the communities under its jurisdiction. This means that a Catholic mission community at Ssangbaek existed at least by the time Hapcheon Parish was founded. Without assigning an unsupported founding date, the record clearly carries the history of Ssangbaek back into the first half of the twentieth century.

Ssangbaek continued as a mission community after the restoration of Hapcheon Parish, but in January 1973 its mission building was destroyed by fire. The parish history records that the mission station was relocated and rebuilt in June 1974. Losing its worship space and then establishing a new one at another location is a central episode in the site's history, showing how the community persisted despite the physical loss of its building.

Later historical accounts of Hapcheon Parish continue to mention Ssangbaek together with Samga and Yaro as mission stations, while the present Directory of the Catholic Church in Korea still lists Ssangbaek as a mission station of the Diocese of Masan. More documentation would be needed to establish its earliest origins or every later change to the building, but the available evidence is enough to describe Ssangbaek as a longstanding local Catholic community that maintained its place of faith through fire, relocation, and rebuilding.