서울고속버스터미널(준) 성당

History & origins

The history of Seoul Express Bus Terminal Quasi-Parish began with a prayer community of Catholics inside the terminal before a formal church structure was established. According to an Archdiocese of Seoul bulletin, by the late 1980s about eighty Catholics, including shopkeepers in the terminal complex and employees of the bus terminal, were gathering for prayer. The company’s president at the time, a Catholic named Lawrence Kim, permitted the use of a meeting room for prayer gatherings and Mass, providing a foundation for regular Catholic life within a transportation facility.

As the community became more active, it needed a more stable pastoral structure. In February 1988, Fr. Ahn Gu-yeol of the Maryknoll Missioners arrived as the first pastor and helped organize the community. In April of that year the Seoul Express Bus Terminal community was established as a quasi-parish; current church information gives April 18, 1988, as the date of establishment. Unlike the more common path by which a new parish is created around a residential neighborhood, this community grew from a workplace and commercial prayer group into a quasi-parish.

The quasi-parish subsequently took root within the terminal, providing a place for Mass and prayer to terminal workers, nearby Catholics, and travelers. An archdiocesan bulletin’s description of the community as seeking to become “a church like a place of rest” not only for nearby shopkeepers and travelers but for everyone reflects this history. The story of Seoul Express Bus Terminal Quasi-Parish is thus one in which lay prayer began in a place of travel and work, developed into resident priestly ministry and quasi-parish status, and became a Catholic community within one of the city’s major transportation hubs. In particular, the development from Mass in a meeting room of a commercial transportation complex to a formally established quasi-parish is an example of how a pastoral community can be shaped around the concrete conditions of a place.