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About this place
Seocho 3-dong Parish belongs to the 12th Seocho District of the Western Seoul Region in the Archdiocese of Seoul and has St. Pio as its patron. It was established in 1993 by separation from Seocho-dong Parish, at a time when the residential and business areas of southern Seoul were developing rapidly and the growing Catholic population required closer pastoral care. It continues to serve local Catholics through Mass, the sacraments, faith formation, and parish community life.
The background to Seocho 3-dong’s establishment shows how strongly its mother parish had grown. During the 1980s and early 1990s, the number of Catholics in Seocho-dong increased to the point that the creation of another parish became necessary. The independence of the Seocho 3-dong community made a more local and closely organized pastoral presence possible. Today, as Catholics continue their life of faith under the patronage of St. Pio, the parish also stands as an example of how a large urban parish in the Archdiocese of Seoul grew and gave birth to a new community amid rapid demographic change. Together with the other parishes of the Seocho District, it forms part of a local pastoral network that divides a large urban area according to lived neighborhoods so that Catholic communities can be served more closely.
History & origins
The history of Seocho 3-dong Parish begins with the rapid growth of its mother parish, Seocho-dong. After Seocho-dong was raised to parish status in 1981, it expanded quickly as southern Seoul underwent major development and residential growth. Historical statistics in the Encyclopedia of Korean Catholicism show an increase from 2,379 Catholics in 1982 to 7,606 in 1987 and 12,435 by 1992. With such rapid growth, it became increasingly necessary to create a new parish aligned with local living areas rather than having one large parish serve an ever-expanding Catholic population.
As a result, Seocho 3-dong Parish was separated from Seocho-dong and established independently on October 18, 1993. The encyclopedia records that 648 households and 1,958 Catholics were transferred from the mother parish to the new community, and the current Korean Catholic Directory confirms the same date of establishment. This was more than an administrative boundary adjustment: it divided a very large urban parish into smaller pastoral communities so that Catholics could participate more closely in Mass, the sacraments, formation, and parish life.
Growth in the area continued after Seocho 3-dong became independent; Seocho-dong later separated another parish, Banpo 4-dong, in 1998. Within this broader development, Seocho 3-dong took root as an independent community formed during the expansion of southern Seoul in the 1990s and has continued its own liturgical and pastoral life under the patronage of St. Pio. Reliable public sources do not provide enough detail to reconstruct the full building history of the present church, so the historical account appropriately focuses on the securely documented process of parish subdivision and the formation of the independent community. This pattern of foundation shows how closely demographic change in southern Seoul and the creation of new parishes were connected during the 1990s.
Korean Catholic Places Encyclopedia
Seocho 3-dong Catholic Church: history and architecture
Read about the place's history, architecture, people, and events in the Korean Catholic Places Encyclopedia.
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Building information
- Passenger elevators: 1
- 4 above-ground floors · 3 below-ground floors
- Approved for use in 2003
- Total floor area: 3,476㎡
Building-register record · · Source
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- Last updated
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- Francisco Diary
Diocese
Official website: https://aos.catholic.or.kr
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