Seongnam Godeung-dong Catholic Church

History & origins

The Diocese of Suwon established Seongnam Godeung-dong Parish as its 222nd parish on June 15, 2021. A new community was formed when 131 households and 354 Catholics were separated from the mother parish, Seongnam-dong, and a church site was secured in Godeung-dong, Sujeong-gu, Seongnam. Because the parish began while the COVID-19 pandemic was still continuing, its members first had to get to know one another and establish the basic structures of community life.

In the autumn of 2021, the parish formed a pastoral leadership team and a building committee and began concrete preparations for construction. A groundbreaking Mass for the new church was celebrated on May 7, 2022. The project was planned on a site of about 1,372 square meters, with one basement level and three floors above ground and a total floor area of about 1,609 square meters. The building included offices, a multipurpose room, the main church, catechetical rooms, choir space, and a rectory. Despite the small size of the new parish and the pandemic conditions, the community gathered prayer and support to carry the project forward.

An entrance Mass for the new church was celebrated on October 14, 2023. To mark the occasion, a time capsule containing records of the parish’s prayers and construction was placed beneath the altar. The roughly two-year journey from parish establishment through groundbreaking to entering the completed church shows how Catholics in a new urban area built not only a physical church but also a connected parish community. Although its history is short, the stages from foundation to completion of the church are unusually clearly preserved in official records.