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About this place
Mirinae Catholic Church is the parish church of Mirinae Parish in the Diocese of Suwon, whose patron is St. Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Mirinae area contains the Memorial Church of St. Andrew Kim Tae-gon, churches honoring the Korean martyrs, religious communities, and retreat facilities, so the character of each place can easily be confused from the names alone. Mirinae Catholic Church is distinct as the parish church where local Catholics celebrate Mass and the sacraments and carry on catechesis and community life, rather than being one of the pilgrimage facilities of Mirinae Shrine.
The preserved St. Joseph Church also bears the traces of Father Mark Kang Do-yeong, an early Korean priest, and of the first Mirinae Catholic community. Because the history of an old Catholic village becoming an established parish overlaps here with the development of a place of martyr veneration, understanding this church also shows that Mirinae was not only a shrine centered on the tomb of one saint, but a living place where Catholics formed a community and passed on their faith across generations.
History & origins
From the early nineteenth century, Catholics fleeing persecution gathered in the Mirinae area and formed a Catholic village. After a long period as a mission station, the community was organized in 1888 as a station of Wangnim Parish and was established as an independent parish in 1896. Father Mark Kang Do-yeong, the third Korean to be ordained a priest, became its first pastor. At that time a single traditional Korean house served both as the rectory and as the church.
As the Catholic population grew, Father Kang and the faithful prepared a new church. The community was not wealthy, and instead of relying only on monetary contributions, parishioners brought stones from the surrounding area when they came to Mass and helped gather the material for construction. The present St. Joseph Church was completed in 1907. Father Kang continued his ministry in Mirinae for many years, working in faith formation and in strengthening the local community, while the church remained at the center of parish life.
In the later Japanese colonial period and after liberation, changes in population and the size of the Catholic community brought changes to the parish’s canonical status. At different times Mirinae became a mission station of another parish or functioned as a quasi-parish; after the establishment of the Diocese of Suwon it was suppressed in 1964 and restored as a parish in 1976. As the surrounding area developed into a major place of martyr veneration, St. Joseph Church continued to be preserved as the parish church witnessing to the local community and to Father Kang’s ministry.
The Diocese of Suwon brought this long history together in 2023 with the publication of the 125-year history of Mirinae Parish. The overlapping development from Catholic village to mission station and parish, and from parish territory to a major shrine area, is a distinctive feature of Mirinae’s history. The present church remains one of the clearest surviving testimonies to the faith and communal sacrifice of the early twentieth-century parishioners.
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Building information
- Passenger elevators: 0
- 1 above-ground floors · 0 below-ground floors
- Approved for use in 2001
- Total floor area: 179㎡
Building-register record · · Source
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Sources and updates
- Information Status
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- Diocese source
- Data freshness
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- Last updated
- Source
- Francisco Diary
Diocese
Suwon Diocese (Diocese of Suwon)
Official website: http://www.casuwon.or.kr
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