Ansan St. Anna Church

History & origins

Ansan St. Anne Parish was established on September 23, 2005, as a new independent community formed during the growth and division of Ansan St. Mary Parish. It took Saint Anne, mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as patron. In its early years the parish had to establish its own liturgical and organizational life while also preparing a permanent church.

Construction of the new church began with a groundbreaking ceremony on December 12, 2009. After the building work, the parish celebrated its entrance Mass on March 6, 2011. Preparation for formal dedication continued, and church reporting notes that parishioners themselves worked to raise construction costs while also undertaking spiritual preparation, including the offering of two million decades of the Rosary.

On October 17, 2021, Bishop Mathias Lee Yong-hoon presided at the dedication of the church. The building has one basement level and four floors above ground, with administrative and meeting spaces, a church seating about 300 people, and facilities for broadcasting and the choir. The sixteen-year path from foundation through groundbreaking, occupation, and final dedication shows how the parish built both its physical and spiritual foundations through sustained community participation. The long interval between moving into the church and its formal dedication also illustrates that beginning liturgical use of a Catholic church and formally dedicating it can be distinct stages. The community first began worship in the new building and then continued spiritual and financial preparation until the church could be solemnly dedicated. This distinction is important for understanding the parish’s building history accurately. This clearly staged chronology makes Ansan St. Anne a good example of a parish that treated the creation of its church as a long-term communal task after foundation. The fact that building work and spiritual preparation are recorded together is also a distinctive feature of its history.